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THE CLASS OF 72, 



^T FRINOETON. 



By KARL KASE. 



PRINCETON, N. J. 

CHARLES S. ROBINSON, PRINTER. 
1872. 



TO MY CLASSMATES 

WHO WERE KIND TO GIVE ME 
I AM HAPPY TO DEDICATE 

^\)c tX)0rk. 



Re-Union Hall, 
Feb. 15th, 1872. 



There is an ancient faculty most ancient in renown, 
That rules an ancient college built in ye ancient town ; 
The town is in the inland, far from ye ancient sea, 
About the middle of the State of New-Jer-ze. 

The town is full of talent, and lager beer saloons ; 

The boys sometimes get "dead broke" and pawn their old spittoons 

But this thing doesn't last long, the reason you shall see— 

We always borrcno when we're short in New-Jer-ze. 

We spend our leisure moments beside ye ancient girls, 
All powdered up, and lovely, in chignon and gay curls ; 
They always smash our hearts, although it strange may be, 
The same girls smashed out fathers' hearts in New-Jer-ze. 



FRESHMAN YEAR. 



PRELUDE. 



This is a setting forth of the researches of the Historian of the Class of 
'72 in order that the actions of her men may not he effaced by time, nor 
the great and wondrous deeds displayed hy hoth Boh Eardee and Ihe 
Richie he deprived of renown. 

How strange it seems that we, at the last day of our college career, 
should stand face to face with the very sentence over which we stumbled 
at the first! How wonderful it is that, after having listened to so many 
things, we should yet remember this, and that, despite the changes which 
the years have wrought, we should so vividly recall the time and 
place in which it was first pronounced. Ah ! class-mates, we feel to-day 
that those words mark an epoch in our Hves, to which in aftertime our 
Tuinds will lovingly return, and no matter when they fall upon our ears, 
they will awaken memories in our hearts at whose call the dear old faces 
will appear again, and all the old scenes in which they figured be re- 
newed. 

There was no Gymnasium then ; our hoys practiced Physical Culture 
by ripping the benches from the old recitation rooms, and by burning them 
around the old cannon. There was no Dickinson Hall, for onr fellows 
used to recite "down cellar" in dingy dens without windows or seats, 
and so early in the morning that we were almost forced to, strap lanterns 
on our heads in order to see the text. There was no Ke-union Hall ; o«r 
classmates slept out in town in closets and store boxes ; and let me assure 
the incredulous, that a store box room in those days was considered as 



much of a luxury as a " parlor front " and " two rooms back " are con- 
sidered in these. In a word, there was not one of those buildings around 
us then, that we see everywhere about us now, to remind us that Prince- 
ton's most glorious history begins immediately after the advent of 
McCosh. 

The prelude to Herodotus carries us back to the day upon which we 
made our first recitation— away back to those gloomy days when the glory 
of this present hour had not begun to dawn, but when, over our heads, 
hung the shadows of long, weary years yet to come, — years which have at 
last been ran ; years which have drawn brother closer to brother in a bond 
that shall endara until brother is torn from brother, and forever ; years 
which, while full of joy and pleasure, have not been free from disease and 
death. But can it be that these handsome, these intellectual, these ele- 
gantly attired individuals before me are the Freshmen of this history ? 
Ah, yes ! but it is no more difficult for us to trace our ancestry back to 
Darwin's old, original baboon, than it is for us to wander down through 
the astounding developments which the years have made, until we discover 
in ourselves the same childlike, gentle, little lambs, who came timorously 
to this classic seat 1460 days ago. Away-back ! ! ! Oh, prospective 
Freshman ! you have no idea what an immense gulf there is between you 
and us ! Away-back ! Long before we ever imagined we would be the 
great men that we are ; when Allen was entirely too little to come to 
college, and long before Reynolds entertained the most distant dreams of 
that now most "copious mustache" — when "high hats" were not 
thought of, and when Sophomores seemed demi-gods, our history begins, 
and runs up until this hour, when Allen puts on his high-heeled boots, 
and Reynolds " cosmetics " his mustache for the last time. 
Anspach, 

Atwater, 

Bergen, 

Bradford, 

Boyle. 
How often did we hear those names ! and yet, how infinitely better it 
would have been for Bishop Shortt's grade, had he heard them oftener 
before breakfast in Freshman year, and Oh ! Oh ! how many there are 
before me now, who trained regularly in Bishop Shortt's brigade ; 



yet, despite little things of this kind, I feel great pride in reviewing the 
issues of the last few years ; it is no task for me to record the many 
things that we have done, and, after a serious retrospection, your histo- 
rian arrives at the conclusion that this is the best cla.-s that was ever in 
Princeton College, but regrets, at the same time, to discover that every 
other historian of every other class cheiished in his boFom a similar 

belief. 

Every man has been so true ; we have made such long strikes at the 
bat, we have done so much at the oar, and we stand before you now after 
so manv a " last probation'' and " liair-hreadth " escape, that each one 
of us, as he gazes upon his reflection in the looking-glass, can with 
warmth and eloquence cry out : 

Great CiBSAB ! what a man ! ! 

We began our career under a revolutionized and reconstructed govern- 
ment. As our footsteps fell upon the entrance, we met an old man going 
out, and there followed behind him an innumerable multitude who called 
benedictions down upon his honorable head ; we too joined with the 
throng, for we knew well how much he had done, and the voices of the 
young mingled with those of the old in a fervent 

" God bless Maclean !" 

Then we turned about to behold the new comer ; to stretch out our 
hands in hearty welcome to the one who had come over so many miles to 
be our instructor and our friend ; he, who, with the strength of an Ajax, 
has lifted the institution up, up in the sunlight, the culture, and the glory 
of the present age— to whom we owe all our trve strength, and to whom 
be all our true gratitude expressed. 

Just here, then, our history begins,— at the end of the old year, at the 
dawn of the new ; that grand and glorious new year which has brought 
so much, and which has so much still to bring, for when onr history is 
ended that new year will still run on, and we leave its conqiiests and its 
glories to be chronicled by older fingers than ours, which resign the pen 
just as the sunshine is breaking on the roofs and towers of these dear 
old halls. 



CHAPTER I. 



Our First Class Meeting. 

Did any of you ever attend a Freshman class meeting? It is unnec- 
essary for me to pause for your reply. The very expression upon your 
faces assures me that you have not, and you may feel grateful — I assure 
you, that you may feel very grateful, because there is nothing so effectual 
in bringing on premature old age, or so calculated to call up serious reflec- 
tions concerning one's latter end, as a Freshman class meeting. 

In the first place, there is no such thing as order ; it would take a 
dozen strong, able-bodied presidents, swinging lustily a dozen base-ball 
bats to procure anything like order. And, pray, who cares for order? 
No one ! and the fellow who insisted upon such a thing would be frowned 
at, hissed at, and regarded as a lunatic. A flaming poster upon the " bul- 
letin tree " announces that the Freshman class will hold a meeting imme- 
diately after dinner, and at the appointed time about half the class assem- 
ble at the appointed place. It is curious, but it is a fact, that every man 
supposes every other man to be in his seat, and vehemently asserts his 
rights by fiendishly clutching the other by the coat collar, or by the hair 
and yanking him out ; that is, if he's strong enough, and if, after a severe 
combat, he becomes assured that he is not, he proceeds to find some one 
whom he is sure is weaker than himself, and yanks Mm out. He must 
yank somebody, and I have seen a man, after being disappointed fourteen 
times, finally succeed at the fifteenth trial, take his seat and arrange his 
dislocated cravat with the air of a conqueror. Everybody loill have his 
yanh, and the man who comes away without one feels that he has iieen 
deprived of one of his most sacred rights. Bergen used to be a little 
fellow in Freshman year, and his " inadequateness of muscle " precluded 
the possibility of his yanking any one else, consequently he used to run 
when any one " made for him ; " but even his nimble legs failed to save 



hiru, for one day Capt. Brad', after being disappointed elaewhere, made 
a dart for him. Bergen sprang up with a yell and leaped for the door, 
but Captain Brad' grasped his vanishing coat tails and "yanked him 
anyhow." The boys didn't care much for the seats, but they just loved 
thej^ank. 

After the course of twenty minutes, during which every man has 
yanked some other man until each has a different seat from the one orig- 
inally selected, there are always about a dozen, who having at first mista- 
ken the plac^ of meeting at last discover it, enter the room, and proceed 
to take their yank, the utmost silence and the gravest dignity, however, 
being maintained by the '' big fellows " upon the front bench, who, hav- 
ing yanked, are satisfied, 

This is the manner in which class meetings are conducted in Freshman 
year, and, accordingly, our president used to yell at the top of his voice : 

" Grentlemen, after every one has had his yank, the meeting will be 
called to order. 

No Freshman who attends any of these meetings will ever forget them, 
for he is always sure, in some one of those tussels, to receive the prelim- 
inaries of a scar which will remain with him until his dying day. Our 
class meetings were unusually hilarious and enthusiastic, and at the first 
one Freddy Duval was elected President, Wells was made Secretary, 
and Kase instituted Historian. We did not elect a treasurer, because no 
Freshman class needs a ti*easurer ; for all the money a Freshman can 
raise is devoted to the purchase of canes, and these canes go to the Soph- 
omores, and these Sophomores go to the Faculty, and a great many of 
these Sophomores, like a great many of these canes, are never seen any 
more. 

Soon after this meeting, a secret gathering was held in Ben Rey- 
nolds' room, situated in the building adjoining Stelle & Smith's. There 
was no yanking begun here for the simple reason that there were no 
seats, and it was observed that a melancholy feeling existed on this ac- 
count. The meeting was called for the purpose of discussing the great 
question of canes. Some one, in a wild, enthusiastic speech, insisted 
that we should carry canes at once, form a line, and in a body fall upon 
any Sophomore who ventured to interfere ; whereupon Ike Richie re- 
marked, in his humorous (?) way, that if the gentleman who preceded 



lO 

him should procure a cane^ he would not be able to carry it. Isaac was 
yanked at once by everybody, and the melancholy feeling immediately 
disappeared. 

After considerable discussion, it was left to each man to act in response 
to his own conscience, and the meeting poured pell-mell down stairs into 
the street below. 

Boyle, who for many weeks had been under tutorage, entered the 
class, at this time, and was enrolled in the first division. Bob Hardee 
was the first to " stump ; " Bishop Shortt was the first to "^ cut" and 
thus our history opens. 



CHAPTER II. 



The Freshman to whom Ignorance was not Bliss. 

Although we had been here but a few days, we had run entirely over the 
place, and examined everything to the most minute detail. We had discov 
ered the art o^ cutting chapel, and of answering to each others names at roll 
call ; we could slide out of a window in the old recitation rooms as adroitly 
as those who had been here for years ; we could creep on our hands and 
knees, and vanish for hreahfast^ through the old doorway as ^^ slick ^^ as 
you please. A first class Jire department had been thoroughly orgasized ; 
a committee had been appointed to examine the gates and door bells out 
in town ; a number of bill posters had formed a co-operative association, 
and posted flaming cuts of Van Amburgh's lions, tigers, elephants and 
birds upon the walls of the " Grreek Room" at regular intervals; a 
' ' hide and seek ' ' band saw that the blackboards were effectively and 
properly greased, whenever it was necessary (which was so frequent that 
they were coated every night). A company of North Carolinians — regu- 
lar old tar-heels — became fearful that the damp atmosphere might affect 
the benches, and accordingly smeared them all over with tar regularly, so 
that the fellows who entered the room to recite in the morning were 
forced " to play horse," and ride astride the backs of the seats, or else 
sit on top of the old, black stove, and, in a word, we had entered in the 
paths leading to that glory which Senior final examinations show we 
have at last attained. 

The historian, during the last four years, has had many a melancholy 
incident to record, from which he would have most willingly shrunk had 
not the stern duties of his oflice bound him to his task ; but, among all 
those who suffered, there was none for whom his sympathies were so solic- 
ited, as for the hero of the following. 



12 

Before narrating the incident, however, I would say that nothing in 
the gentleman's conduct since the affair could convince any one that it did 
actually occur ; yet, in defense of this chapter, I would state that dozens 
assured me "it was a fact," and the Neio York Times announced it as 
such to the estent of an entire column. 

Out of sympathy to the gentleman, herein so deeply involved, we will 
not state his name, thereby securing him, and likewise insuring our own 
personal safety, because he is a great deal heavier than we are, and might 
call us to account after the episode has been recited. 

Suffice it to say, that he was a member of this most honorable body ; 
and, like most members of this most honorable body, when he first ar- 
rived, he was young, innocent and child-like, considering every one his 
friend, and giving each man a corresponding trust. 

One day, desiring a change of linen, he found, to his astonishment, 
that every piece of linen which he owned had been already changed, and 
was thereby convinced that it would be as easy for him to find a gold 
mine in the campus, as it would be to find a clean shirt in his wardrobe. 

What was he to do? "Why, get his soiled linen washed," you 
reply. Ah ! but how was he to do this ? He had been here but a week ; 
was entirely unacquainted ; had seen no washer-woman about the place, 
and had read, in the code of college laws, that no one of the gentler sex 
would be tolerated around the buildings ; he could not wash, himself 
Where, oh ! where was Preshy to get a clean shirt? and echo answered — 
' ' no where. ' ' 

To be sure there were innumerable pumps in the neighborhood — but 
every one knows that Princeton pump water will not do for linen, because 
if you put a collar in a tub of our pump water it will at once begin to curl 
like a Chinese sensitive plant, and, eventually, will wind itself as snugly 
about your finger as the little dandelion you used to play with when you 
were little children. 

The gentleman amid the useless pumps stood motionless and thought- 
ful : as a man alioays is when he don't exactly see from what quarter he 
is going to get his next collar, as a man always must be, when he is con- 
scious that his head is revolving around the neck band of his last shirt, 
and looking hopelessly about him at the pumps like Coldridge's ^^ Ancient 
Mariner'' did ye modern Preshman exclaim : 



13 

" Water, water all around, 
And not a drop— to wash." 

He returned to hia room disheartened— ah, what hour is more terrible 
than that in which the heart that never quails while there is hope, feels 
in its inmost depths that hope is dead ? His head was bowed : his elbows 
were upon his knees, and there was naught to break the silence save the 
light rustle of the curtains as they swayed to and fro at the hiss of the 
noon-day air. 

What could he do ? Nothing, but at the moment overwhelmed he 
cried—" Oh for a lodge in somevast wilderness /" (with &pond in it,) and 
he sunk down again in his easy chair, his head under his coat collar, and 
his elbows upon his knees as before. The hot, burning sun without, the 
high temperature of the room within, and the warm emotions at his heart 
which like a furnace heated hislblood, were fast telling upon the stiffness 
of his solitary collar, and he felt sure that under such circumstances it 
could not last long, but would soon dangle around his neck like a damp, 
withered weed. 

Columbus is said to have set out to discover America with many mis- 
givings, but with no more than this Freshman set out to find a washer- 
woman. He gathered his soiled linen, threw it into a pillow case and 
sallied forth in the campus. Many forms passed, and gave him half the 
walk— and he wondered why he had not lefore thought of asking some 
one to give him the information which he sought " I'll do it nowT he 
muttered to himself, and stepping up to a Sophomore he asked in a 
wavering, faltering voice. 

" Can you tell me where I can get my clothes washed?" 

Now it chanced that the person to whom he put the question was a 
lewdhoy, a very crweZ young man, who would laugh fiendishly whenever 
he could lead any poor Freshman in a scrape, so putting on a long face 
he answered : 

"Certainly, sir, certainly ! Strange, very strange," he continued " that 
you have not yet been informed. These College servants are very lazy 
though, and dress so well that it is almost impossible to tell them from 
the professors. But now you must let them know that you loill not be 
imposed upon, come with me." 

The Freshman and the lewd boy walked on together side by side, and 
as they passed by groups of upper classmen there were some of them who 



14 

winked significantly at the lewd boy, but the Fresh boy understandeth it 
not. 

In a few moments the lewd boy paused before a neat looking little 
house, situated just outside the campus, and addressing the Freshman 
said : " Here is the servant's office, go in and give him fits : tell him you 
have just come, but you are no fool, and that you mean to make him do 
his duty," so saying the lewd boy withdrew. Now a stern, grave, old pro- 
fessor lived in this very house, but the poor Fresh boy did not know it. so 
mounting the steps boldly, he pulled the bell with a jerk, the next mo- 
ment opened the door, and throwing his clothes upon the floor said indig- 
nantly : 

"I want you to have these clothes washed at once : Why haven't 
you been to see about them long ago ? You needn't think 'cause I've just 
come here, that I'm a fool. You can't impose on me !" 

As the Fresh boy uttered word after word, the face of the professor 
changed color a dozen times. After the Freshman had finished, and the 
professor saw the meaning intended, had all the bombshells, sky-rockets 
and fire-crackers of Fourth of Julies past and yet to come exploded with 
one tremendous bang! ! at his feet, he could not have been more astound- 
ed. He knocked all the books off his table, and planted himself with a 
leap before the astonished Freshman. 

'' Oh young man! young man !" he cried, "you don't know who I 
am, oh you don't know who I am, you have been deceived, abused, 
egregiously imposed upon — I say egregiously because there is no word, 
that /am at liberty to use, stronger than egregiously — suffice it, suffice it, 
sir, EGREGIOUSLY. Go ! sir, go !" 

The Freshman did go, just as though he had been fired out of a cannon. 
Meanwhile the lewd boy had informed all his numerous friends and ac- 
quaintances of his tricks, and immediately upon his appearance Freshy 
was greeted with a series of yells, but how he eventually got his clothes 
washed is a mystery to which he, and he only holds the key. 



CHAPTER III. 



Lo ! THE Poor Indian ! 

Actors: Ben Reynolds, Frank Woodward, Blair Seribner, Andy McClintock and Bayard 
Stockton. 

Stelle & Smith's— what a place ! What man is there here before me 
now who has not spent, at least, an hour every day, during four years, at 
this great resort? Every night the fellows, pouring from the eating 
clubs, throng the establishment, and wedge it with living forms to the 
door. Here it is that the Freshmen assemble to calculate their average 
grades, to discuss the merits of the University Nine, to slander their 
tutors, and"to arrange the preliminaries of all " after-dark affairs." At 
Stelle & Smith's you can do what you please, and say what you will, with- 
out taking home with you the uneasy conviction that you have been over- 
heard, and will be called to account for it in the morning before the 
' ' tniglity powers that he. ' ' 

Should you ask the loungers there for what reason the establishment 
had become so popular, they would tell you it was because of its advan- 
tages, viz. : 

1st. It is near the Post Office. 

2d. It is next door to Mr. Van Marter's. Ah ! Van Marter's : hence 
this chapter. 

Mr. Van Marter, cigar manufacturer, pipe rejuvenator, dealer 
in plug tobacco, snuff, and the choicest brands of smoking, agent for 
Kaldenburg, Pollock, and for every man in the South who raised, cut 
and cured the fragrant weed, was mad ! fearfully, horribly, terribly mad. 
Mr. Van Marter had been insulted ; how, will now be seen: Mr. Van 
Marter had been imposed upon — in what manner let the sequel show. 

Van Marter has a good store, and Van Marter has a nice sign indicat- 
ing his popular vocation in the shape of a gay, little Indian squaw, with a 
cracked cheek, and a split nose. How long Van has possessed this duti- 



i6 

ful daughter, no one knows ; but, year after year has she stood there, in 
her war paint and feathers ; month after month has she been hustled out- 
doors in the morning, and in-doors at night ; breasting wind, snow, hail 
and rain ; holding in her hands a bunch of cigars which no one has ever 
purchased — poor, friendless, loverless, her mighty people have fallen, and 
the Thomas hawk of her nation is broken. 

Five boys — five had little boys — Benny, Franky, Blair, Andy 
and Bayard, stood there alone before the melancholy squaw ; all the 
others had departed, and the echo of their footsteps had died entirely 
away; "the evening shades were falling fast; " the mistress of night 
had tacked up a new moon ; silver stars were twinkling ; heaven was 
alive, but earth was still. 

In the shadows those five boys stood, gazing with uplifted counte- 
nances in the face of the poor squaw, whose eyes never once gave them 
an answering glance, but were fixed upon the glittering heavens, as though 
she were seeking for the faces of her fathers among the stars. 

"Dost see the thing? " asked Benny. 

" Yea ! " responded Franky. 

" Poor thing ! " said Andy. 

"Poor thing ! " reiterated Bayard. 

" For years she has never been permitted to make a single call," said 
Blair. 

" What a dreary, monotonous life she must lead ! " added Ben, pa- 
thetically, as he wiped away a tear, which was caused by some tobacco 
smoke drifting in his left eye. 

" Let me address 3'ou, friends of philanthropy," cried Frank, who 
was celebrated for his grandiloquence. 

" 0, hang the address! " interrupted Ben, who was a townsman of 
Frank's, and knew that an hour's speech awaited them if Frank were 
permitted to continue. "Hang all addresses, I say, and let us away 
with this old squaw. ' ' 

" Poor thing, let's keep her here no more. 
Let's take her to another shore," 

spoke up Andy, poetically. 

" Yes, but how will we do it? " Bayard inquired. 

" Easy enough ! easy enough ! " said Ben. " Leave it to me ! You 
see," he continued, " Van promised to make me a great, big cigar, not to 



17 

smoke, but to hang up in my room as an ornament. He said he'd do it 
any time I'd ask him to. Now, I'll go in and talk to him a little while ; 
after a few words, I'll hint about the big cigar, and when you see us go 
in the back shop together, you just pick up the Indian and waltz off with 
it. But, lest Van should think us planning, I guess we'd better sing a 
song. ' ' 

Now, if any one had gone around with the members of our class for 
the purpose of selecting the worst singers, I don't think he could have 
selected five poorer ones. They began. All the lights along the main 
street darkened at once, and the moon rushed behind a cloud. A moan- 
ing North wind swept over the face of nature, and the little stars trem- 
bled, as though shivering. All the dogs that were out that night could 
have been seen walking home upon their hind legs, holding their front 
paws over their ears. 

" Gosh !" exclaimed Bayard at the end of the first verse. " That's 
the nearest we ever come to the tune without hitting it, in all our natural 
born days, eh?" 

One by one the lights in the front windows sprang up again, the 
North wind died with a moan among the rustling autumn leaves, 
the moon shone brightly, and the shiver passed out of the stars, as 
Ben went in the store to reconnoitre. It is positively asserted that 
Van was found lying flat upon the counter, kicking the glass out of the 
back window with his heels, a plug of "navy" jammed in each ear. 
"Groodness gracious! what's the matter with youT' cried Ben as he 
entered the store. 

"Young man," said Van, as a look of unutterable anguish swept 
over his face, "one more verse would 'a shivered me to blazes, an' would 
'a give Allen, the coffin maker, a permatter job. That air singin' has 
entirely soured my gas metre an' warped every darned board in this 'ere 
floor! !" 

Ben laughing returned — " I'm fixing up my room Van: fixing it all 
up gay and festive like. Van, business is light to night, ain't it ?" 

" Darned light ; lighter nor its been for sev'ral evenings," answered 
Van. 

"Well now, Van, you know you promised to make me a big cigar, 
and I thought as your business was light, this would be a jolly good time 
for you to begin. ' ' 



" Jist as good as eny, sir ; jist as good as eny an' if you'll come with 
me back here, I'll do it light away sir !" Van said, as Ben followed him 
to the back room. Andy, Franky, Blair and Bayard caught up the 
wooden Indian, and away they went, across the main street to Railroad 
avenue, then dojvn Railroad avenue to the spot where the Gymnasium 
now stands, when pitching the squaw over the fence, they paused. 

" Lo ! the poor Indian !" said Bayard with a laugh. 

" Yes, the poor Indian is low," returned Andy, transposingly. 
" Comrades, listen !" shouted Frank leaping over the fence, and stand- 
ing on the poor Indian's back. "Listen oh comrades, and behold the 
grand, old original aborigine ! Let your minds run back through the long 
line of years." 

"We won't do anything of the kind : dry up !" shouted Blair, "but 
what shall we do with it ?' ' 

" Take her to the brow of yon precipice that overhangs the lime stone 
quany, and let her drop, kerslap in the water, even as her noble fathers 
have previously dropped and kerslapped," Frank yelled, gesticulating 
wildly. 

" No ! no ! that would be rough on Van," said Bayard. " We had 
better leave it here, and make tracks for Ben's room," and they left the 
figure leaning against the fence, in the cold night air, the cruel boys. 
Meanwhile Ben had kept^'Van busily engaged upon his big cigar, and after 
it was finished, he hastily departed. Some time after, Van came out to 
close the shop. The shutters were put up in various sections against 
windows and door, when he turned about to wheel in the Indian. 

" Grone ! ! ! !" he shrieked, and a blue flame issued from his mouth 
that was hot enough to blast every fruit tree in the neighborhood. An 
hour after this he was running like a wild man through the streets, and 
about the campus, searching high and low for his Indian — but in vain. 

It was hard by twelve o'clock, chummy had just retired, and I was 
finishing my last pipe, when a hard loud knock was struck upon my door, 
and as the door swung back I saw the lean, peaked face of old Van peer- 
ing in upon me. He wore that old yellow handkerchief about his neck, 
knotted sailor fashion and spreading over his breast like a fan. Upon his 
head he wore that old, old hat, which has no doubt covered every head 
in the Van Marter family for years past, and which will continue to do 



19 

so in time to come, until either the hat or the Van Marters are no more. 
There he stood like a midnight apparition to remind me of an unpaid bill, 
and nervously I awaited his words : 

" Say duffer, you hain't seen nothin' of a little, wooden, yaller Indian 
squaw abosit yere, ha' you?" he asked in a voice which seemed to antici- 
pate the negative answer which I gave. "Good night! some darned 
rascals ha' stolen her — "and he was gone. 

By and by the door swung back again, and once more the lean, long 
form stood upon the threshold. But the face was all aglow with passion, 
and a dangerous light trembled in his eyes — while I fumbled about my 
pocket to find the amount of that little bill. 

"Say, look here ! You needen't think 1 don't know the fellers 
what stole that gal, 'cause I do, an' by thunder it'll go tougher than 
boardm'' Jioiise hash mth'em too; Say you jist give 'em my comple- 
ments, and tell 'em I know 'em, an' tell 'em that if they'll pay me jist 
twenty dollars apiece, I wont say nothin' t'all, but if they won't, I'll yank 
'em till they won't know their own pictures, now I will, by thunder ! 
Grood night!" and he was gone again. 

I don't know whether Van searched for his Indian all night long, or 
whether remorse led some one of the five abstractionists to tell him where 
it was, but upon going to breakfast the next morning I saw Van wheeling 
it back home, on a barrow, and it stands up there in front of his store to- 
day, just as it stood four years ago, and just as it will stand four years 
hence. 



CHAPTER IV. 



Dr. Hamlin; His Wizard Oil. 

There are a few real old venerable merj about town : men who have 
seen class after class go out in the world : men who have at their tongue's 
ends, the biography of many distinguished persons during their younger 
years, and to the incidents which these old fellows narrate it is indeed a 
real pleasure to listen. 

"Do you see this hat?" says one of them, holding up a greasy old 
shapo : " well sir, John C. Breckinridge wore this very hat when he was 
in college," and thereupon all the incidents identified with John's early 
life, are related with an enthusiasm ^hich appears to remove the narra- 
tor's years until he seems a boy again. They will tell that from their 
earliest recollection, Princeton students have always hated quacks, and 
humbugs of every description. They will tell you that honest men meet 
with the warmest reception, and that whenever a performer of merit 
comes to town his house is thronired night after night, but to medical 
quacks no mercy whatever is shown. I see none of these old veterans 
before me now, and it involves upon me as a duty to tell you of Dr. Ham- 
lin and his Wizard oil. 

Dr. Hamlin had come : we knew it well, for the doctor had taken 
particular pains to let us know of his advent. Yes he had really come, in 
all his glory, in all his Asiatic and Oriental magnificence : had come with 
his gaily painted chariot, his cream colored team, and lastly he had come 
with his wonderful Wizard oil. Oh such oil had never been seen ! It 
would cure anything : nay, more, it would cure everything — it would make 
a tumor dwindle, down to a pimple, and would take a knot oiF the stout- 
est log: and draio^ there was nothing that this oil wouldn't draw ; coun- 
try ministers used this oil to draw their salaries ; artists used it to draw 
their pictures and it was the original intention of the doctor to visit Egypt 
and draw out the Sphynx. 



21 

All daj^ long the doctor's chariot rolled, thundering along our streets, 
all about our beautiful avenues, boulevards and pavilions, and with what 
feelings of awe did our astounded townsmen gaze upon the smiling coun- 
tenance of this " medicine man." Dr. Wyckoff was discouraged; he 
knew it was no use, and accordingly, put up his shutters, and took 
down his sign. 

Once each hour, like some beautiful dream that repeats itself, did 
that grand chariot roll up and down, leaving in its wake innumerable 
youngsters, who wore the bottoms of their feet entirely bare in effort to 
keep pace with the gorgeous vehicle. 

" Night, a black blood-hound 
Follows the white fawn, Day." 

The shadows began to lower, the dark hair mingled with the blonde as 
the sun, touching the Western cloud with a golden kiss, sunk into the 
ocean. 

Who does not remember April 1st, 1869—" All Fool's" Day ? Who 
does not remember how Big Mike rushed like a mad man up four flights 
of stairs, because somebody had told him little John Breckinridge was 
dying, when in reality John was in another building playing euchre ? 
Who has forgotten how we all purchased the most old fashioned hats we 
could find, and arranged a fantastic parade led by a pasteboard band ? 
What a funny sight it was — each man had put a partition half way in his 
hat, cut a face in one side, stuck in a tallow candle, mounted the whole 
structure with an American flag, and thus became at once the proprietor 
of a patriotic and portable Jack 'o Lantern. Freshmen were funnier in 
those days than they are in these. 

We went around the triangle in a long, illuminated procession, our 
pasteboard band astounding the dogs, and putting every cat to flight, 
frightening truck horses, and winning strong exclamations from thetruck- 
sters themselves, when as we we were returning we saw the doctor's wagon 
going down street. 

Oh ! oh ! oh ! what a sight ! ! ! It looked like a monstrous Fairy 
Land, boiled down, drawn out fine, and put on wheels. It was lit about 
on all sides with great flaming, crackling torches ; every man engaged as 
musician by the doctor, had a light fastened upon the top of his head, 
and to make additional daylight each man sat upon a blazing lantern. It 



22 

looked just as though Prof. Alexander (Prof, of Astronomy) had takea 
the halter from one of his largest meteors, and turned it out to pasture. 
The harness of the beautiful horses glittered with silver bells which mer- 
rily rang as the steeds moved on ; the blazing torches spirted forth rings 
of smoke, which encircled the musicians, each of whom was blowing his 
horn as though his heart would break. 

On ! on ! the chariot thundered, until it reached the old market house 
when it came to a stand still. 

About it numerous souls clustered, men, women and children ; all the 
college boys were there, when from a stool in the wagon, the doctor, 
encased in a fine dress suit of blue cloth, addressed us : 

Doctor. Grood evening, gentlemen ! 

Students. Hurrah ! hurrah ! Tiger ! 

Voice in the Crowd. Say good evenin' to the ladies you darned old fool. 

Doctor. Gentlemen I'm glad to see you all here. Music. 

Music. Zig-a-zag-zig-a-zag-a-zig-a-zag-a-zee. 

Students. Hurrah ! Tiger ! 

Doctor. Grentlemen, I come before you as a doer of great good, of very 
great good. Gentlemen, I am a philanthropist ! Music here ! 

Music. Zig-a-zag-a-zig-a-zag-a-zig-a-zag-a-zee. 

Students. Hurrah ! Tiger ! 

Doctor. Gentlemen, I've invented a great discovery. It's all my own. 
Music here. 

Music. Zig-a-zag-a-zig-a-zag-a-zig-a-zag-a-zee. 

Doctor. Now, all you as have pains come here and get cured, free as 
gettin' the measles. 

Students. Hurrah! Tiger! Bum! Ah! 

Hereupon a middle aged man went up to the doctor and told him he 
was deaf in the left ear. 

Doctor. AW right, sir, {ruhs his ear for twenty minutes.) Any better, 
sir ? {yells in his ear. ) 

Man. Not a blasted bit. 

Doctor. [Rubs it more.) Better noio, sir, aint it? 

Man. Not a blasted bit. 

Doctor. This is strange ! 

Man. Well, it oughtn't to be strange. 



23 

Doctor^ Whj' not ? 

Man. Because I was horn deaf in my left ear. 

Doctor, My God ! we can't do miracles. Get down off the steps ! 
Music here. 

Music. Zig-a-zag-a-zig-a-zag-a-zig-a-zag-a-zee. 

Students. Hurrah ! Tiger ! 

The doctor had failed to cure the deaf man, and, after the failure, the 
bo.ys greeted every word he said with a yell. They yelled and hooted, 
hissed and roared, shouted and shrieked, and the doctor's mouth flew open 
and shut like a steel trap, but not a word of his could be heard. The 
music, too, was inaudible, though every horn blower threw himself into 
convulsions in the vain attempt to sound one note above the general tu- 
mult. The bass drummer hammei^ed as though he were contending for a 
prize, when a flying brick bat whirled over the heads of the people, en- 
tered the wagon, and a look of agony immediately settled upon the drum- 
mer's face, which assured us that the head of the big bass drum was no 
more. The horses, with a sudden plunge, whirled the chariot about and 
slung the immaculate doctor head over heels, and wedged his head in a 
big bass horn. The driver, in a fit of passion, lashed the steeds, and the 
chariot, aglow with light, rushed up the street as a falling, star through 
the heavens ; numerous souls followed in hot pursuit, and around the 
thundering chariot myriad voices howled. The driver made for the sta- 
bles, but a crowd headed him off, and the team came to a stand-still just 
before the Mansion House. Pans full of dirty water were thrown from 
the windows above upon the heads of the fellows below, until at last they 
bade the doctor good night and departed. 

Chancing to drop in the hotel, later in the evening, I saw the doctor 
in the bar room. 

"Young man," said he, advancing as 1 entered, "'are you a stu 
dent?" 

I hesitated to answer ; for the doctor was a large man, and I knew he 
would be several too many for me, if he had any inclination that way, but 
indulging in the faint hope that Big Mike might be somewhere in the 
neighborhood, and putting my hand in my back pocket, (where I always 
carry my handkerchief, ) as though feeling for my pistol, I told him I loas 
a student. 



24 

" Young man," said he again, " I've travelled all over ; I've been all 
around ; I have heard an artillery charge — have heard a hundred bloody 
Indians yell— have been in a boiler manufactory when they were rivetting 
ten boilers at one time ; was once in China, and saw a trial contest of two 
hundred gongs, but hang me if I ever, in all my days, heard such a noise 
as you fellows made to-night. I came here to stay a week, but I'm off at 
six in the morning," and the doctor kept his word, and has never been 
seen here since. 



CHAPTER V. 



The Duel in Potter's Woods.-A Chapter of Horrors. 
Harry Boyle roomed in the Arnlieiter Block, just opposite the Car- 
penter building ; away in the tip-top of the Arnheiter Block he lived, up 
I don't know how many flights of stairs, around I don't know how many 
corner. But Harry Boyle's room was not without its advantages, in 
the firsi pkce, it was quiet. If you wanted to arrange the preliminaries 
to any little affair, good Harry's door was always open ; at any hour in 
the day, at any hour in the night, you could find entrance there, for the 
string of his latch was never pulled in. , , ^ ■ +i 

His pipes were numerous and excellent, his tobacco, the best m the 
market, his chairs were large, easy and comfortable, and m college, or in 
town, I don't think you could have found more cozy quarters than at the 
good old room in the Arnheiter Block. If you wished to talk, Harry could 
fell you the best of stories, and, if you wished to read Harry s library 
was there at your service. No one ever came to see Harry who did not 
care for him ; because nobody would have climbed all those gloomy stair-^ 
ways, or srown dizzy in turning all those corners, were he not sure ot 
meeting with the warmest reception from as good a fellow as ever lived. 
And then, again, those who knew Harry and loved him, were always 
sure to stay awhile, if they called; for, after getting up there,_ no one 
could muster the strength, or the determination, to go down again under 
two hours, at least. , 

It was a wild night ; the wind whistled in the Arnheiter wmdows, and 
moaned through the Arnheiter halls, while the rain dashed agamst the 
house, until the block grew black as the night itself In the topmost 
room, the light shone upon Harry, Frank Woodward and Bobby 
McDowell sitting there, around the fire, smoking their pipes, un- 
mindful of the tempest and the storm without, when, above the roar ot 



26 

the wind and the rattle of the rain, they heard the loud bang of the 
street door below. A tramp, tramp, tramp, step by step, gave warning 
that some one was climbing upward, and, soon after, a nervous rap, rap, 
was struck against the door, which swung back at Harry's bidding, and 
J. Blair Scribner stood upon the threshold. 

■' Grood heavens ! what a night, boys ! " said he, removing overcoat 
and hat. "The rain, actually pricks like pins and needles. Come, 
Harry, a pipe, old boy, and everything else that's refreshing." 

Now Harry Boyle and Frank Woodward foresaw something ; for 
they knew that when two rivals, like Scribner and McDowell, met, 
there must be a crash of some kind ; so they filled their pipes anew, 
stirred up the fire, and leaned back in their easy chairs in anticipation of 
something which they felt sure would take place. 

After the usual polished and erudite manner in which students pass 
recognition generally, and, after the day's topics were, to a great extent, 
exhausted, McDowell, having an after-dark affair, in which, if I mistake 
not, the chapel bell was seriously interested, with a generosity character- 
istic of the individual, invited J. Blair Scribner to join hands with him 
and set the ball rolling, or rather, since it is necessary to be definite, 
McDowell cordially invited him to lend his assistance in arranging the 
bell ringing. 

" Now, you see, Blair," said Mac, " now, you see," said he, aris- 
ing from his seat, and shouldering his left coat tail, " now you see," he 
exclaimed for the third time, " all you'll have to do, Blair, will be to 
run down to Carpenter's tin shop, lay hands upon that big, long ladder, 
bring it up here npon your back, and I'll do all the work — tie the rope 
and everything else. Do you understand, Blair ? ' ' 

Blair, although under ordinary circumstances, the most accommoda- 
ting individual in the class, looked up in a way which showed that he con- 
sidered Mac's language, about doing alt the work, exceedingly figurative, 
especially since Carpenter's tin shop was a mile away, and the ladder 
weighed over sixty pounds, so he said : 

" In consideration of the falling weather, the slippery state of the soil, 
the danger of life and limb engendered in reaching the North college 
tower, and the fearful result, if caught, I don't think your plan \?,jpracti- 
cable, Mac." 



27 

Mac had anticipated just such a reply ; indeed, had it not been given 
he would have been sadly disappointed ; so, springing from his seat, with 
a tremendous stride, he cried : 

" 0, what a classman you are ! I What a pretty classmate you really 
are ! What a fine specimen of courage you ajBFord ! Bah ! you're a con- 
founded old cow." 

ScRiBNER did not say a word, but he gazed upon Mac as though he 
thought the fellow was laboring under a mental or an optical delusion. 

"Oh! you needn't look!" cried Mac, "You are, you are, you 
ARE an old cow! " he continued, vehemently, - with another of those 
strides. ' ' You know it, too. You always back out in going on a spree, 
and after the affair is done, and every one is laughing over the result, you 
come around and say, 'Didn't we do it fine?' Yes, sir, you jump in 
your neighbor's pasture and eat it all up ! " 

Hereupon Mr. Scribner, (and who can blame him,) jumped up, 
grasped his overcoat, and calling Mac by a came, which, in the dialect of 
an illiterate Englishman, would be " a '09'," left the room in a passion, 
unheeding the cries of Boyle and Woodward, slamming the door so 
violently that it turned all the pictures wrong side out, fractured the mir- 
ror, and almost made the stone spittoon jumjj upon the centre table. 

Mac strode about the room like one who had conquered a city. 
Meanwhile Boyle winked at Woodward, Woodward winked at Boyle, 
and there was a mutual understanding, because there is a wonderful sig- 
nificance in a " college wink." Woodward was a little nervous, for he 
never could shut one eye without shutting the other, but Mac was so 
elated that he didn't notice Woodward's characteristic misfortune. 

Boyle carelessly remarked that he didn't think it would have been 
well for Scribner to have addressed him in the manner he had spoken 
to Mac, while Woodward, who, although never at any time a devotee 
of the prize ring, did, nevertheless, have a slight sprinkle of its peculiar 
phraseology, said : 

" If I were a rooster, I would deem it necessary, for the dignity of my 
family, to fight!'" 

Boyle, taking up the cue, returned : 

" I don't know how it is up North, but it is the universal custom in 
Kentucky to fight a duel over much smaller things than this," and con- 



28 

eluded his speech by a brief recapitulation of sundry murders committed 
in that state, under his own immediate, personal observation. 

■' Oh, the devil ! we'i-e civilized up here ! " said Mac. 

"Then I'm sorry," said Boyle, "that cowardice is so important, 
and, just now, conspicuous an element in Northern civilization." 

"Who says I'm a coward? " cried Mac, vehemently, with another 
of those characteristic strides, " who says I'm a coward ? " he reiterated. 
" Show me the man ! I want to see him ! Didn't I light the match that 
burned Dr. Atwater's ice house ? Didn't I run all over the country with 
a brush and paint pot, that I might illuminate Prof. Peabody's horse? 
Didn't I hurl a dozen stones at Tute Rankin's windows? and— and don't 
I smoke ? " 

"I don't care anything about that." spoke Woodward. "True 
bravery consists in standing out in broad daylight, and meeting an enemy 
face to face, and not in prowling around nights, with an inch of burnt 
cork upon your face, and a dark society mask in your pocket, miles away 
from professors, tutors and janitors. So flare up and be a man ! " 

" No, sir ! I won't fight a duel ! " shouted Mac, fumbUng in his side 
pocket for his mother's last letter, at the same time making the grandest 
stride of his life. 

Woodward, in no way discomfited, winkedoneof his double barreled 
winks at Boyle. 

" Look here, we'll have a good joke upon Scribner ; now you just 
dish up a challenge, Mac," he continued, drawing his chair so close to 
Mac's that a stranger would have sworn they were both occupying the 
same seat, " and we'll have some fun." Then placing his fore finger in 
the most concise and demonstrative manner against Mac's left knee, he 
resumed : 

" We'll load the pistols with hlarik cartridges, but we won't let Scrib- 
ner know it : so when he fires you must fall, and, making him believe he 
has shot you, we'll run him off to Philadelphia. How in that, any how?" 

"Hi! hi!" cried Mac, slapping Woodward enthusiastically upon 
the left shoulder, " That's grand ! That's A. No. 1 ! That's P Prime! 
Grive us your quill and I'll dash a challenge ! " 

Then and there, while the wind was whistling and the rain dashing 
without, 'neath the rays of a convulsive kerosene lamp, Mac wrote the 
following : 



29 

Mb. Scribnek: 

Sir : 

The words you uttered, in parting from me last night, burn in my bosom 
and cut my heart like a knife. You understand this ; if not, Mr. 'Woodward, ivho acts as my 
friend, will explain. Respectfully, 

Robert McDowell 

The next morning Woodward conveyed the challenge to Scribner, 

and it was read. 

" What does the fellow mean ? " was Scribner' s exclamation. 

Woodward, who, when circumstances demanded it, could be the 
most solemn individual in the world, put on a long face and said : 

" Scribner, far be it from me to lead you into an affair that would 
end fatally, or even unpleasantly to you ; but McDowell was deeply 
affected at the name you applied to him last night, and has, accordingly, 
acted as a gentleman always acts, by sending you that which you have 
just read. I am a classmate, and, I trust, a friend to both of you, but 
act as McDowell's second in this affair simply because he first asked me 
so to do ; for the same reason I would have acted as yours, had you writ- 
ten the challenge, and asked for my services. But time is precious, and, 
I hope, indeed, I am stire, that you will permit me to return to the gen- 
tleman with an appropriate reply." 

Scribner grasped the pen, wrote hastily, read what he had written, 
threw it in the stove, and, in an instant, all that was left of it was whirled 
up the chimney with a whiz. 

Just then Boyle and J. H. Scribner, our hero's cousin, entered the 
room and, immediatelv after their entrance, young Scribner said : 

"I'll not fight a duel; you can tell Mr. McDowell that I am a 
coward, if you will, but tell him, when we meet again I'm ready to settle 
old scores in the more modern way. You may tell him, too, that my 
opinion of him exceeds in bitterness his opinion of me ! But go to him 
at once, before your memory becomes treacherous and you misconstrue my 

The elder Scribner turned pale, for he saw the drift of things at 
once. Woodward saw, too, that Blair Scribner was in earnest, and, 
winking with two eyes, said softly to young Blair, so that no one but 
himself could hear : 



30 

" Blair, now we'll have a good joke on Mac. We'll load the pistols 
with Llank cartridges, and when Mac fires you must fall ; then we'll run 
him off to New York." 

"By Jove!" said Blair, "that's it! Give me a quill and I'll 
answer. " 

Then and there, while the morning wind was stirring the trees with- 
out, while the birds sung among the branches in the morning sunlight, 
was the challenge answered. 

Hereupon the elder Scribner, not understanding things at all, turned 
deadly pale. Such a time you never — never saw ; in his imagination he 
beheld his young cousin, borne home from the fatal field, lifeless, withan 
ugly hole in his forehead. He ran around like a wild man, upsetting 
tables, chairs, book cases, indiscriminately. 

" Boyle ! Woodward ! what would you do ! J. Blair, you shall 
not answer the challenge ! " he said as he furiously caught the young 
fnan by the coat collar, and sent him whirling over the floor like a peg-top. 

All present laughed heartily, and Woodward explained all to the 
elder Scribner, assured him that no one would be hurt, and, in a word, 
told him everything from the beginning to the end. 

Physiognomy has failed to show what an immense change can be pro- 
duced upon the human countenance by the utterance of a few plain 
words, and the elder Scribner, like McDowell and Blair, could not be 
too demonstrative when he heard that no one was to be hurt. 

Boyle was to act as Blair's second, while the elder Scribner was to 
officiate as surgeon, and the duel was to bo fought in Potter's woods. 

When Woodward conveyed Blair's answer to McDowell, he did 
not inform Mac of the arrangement he had been forced to make with 
young Blair, and as Blair had no knowledge of what Woodward had 
told Mac the evening before, each thought he had the other on the hip, 
both would fall, and the duel would be made doubly ridiculous. 

At noon the duellists faced each other, backed by their seconds — the 
pistols in their hands. 

" One! two! three!" the triggers were pulled. 

Scribner' s pistol made no report whatever, while from the end of 
Mac's, a little thread of smoke wiggled out about the size of a horse 
hair. Surprised at the turn things had taken, neither fell. 



31 

The seconds conversed apart, decided to load the pistols again, and 
once more the rivals stood face to face on the bloody (?) field. 

" Now, Mac, j'ou must not fall this time, for we've made a new ar- 
rangement," said his second, in an undertone, as the command "one! 
two ! three ! " was given. 

Both revolvers cracked simultaneouslj', when Blair Scribner, with a 
yell like that of a man who cries for the last time, went up in the air, and 
fell heavily upon the ground, and, as the smoke cleared away, McDow- 
ell saw Boyle holding Blair Scribner upon his knee trying to find the 
wound from which the red liquid proceeded that dyed his entire bosom, 
as it trickled down to the ground. 

" You've killed him ! You've shot him ! In the great haste the 
wrong cartridges were used 1 " cried Woodward vehemently. " Run ! 
Run ! Come ! Come ! " 

" Tell my mother I fought for my honor ! " cried Mac, as he started 
out with Woodward across the country. 

Oh, how Mac run ! his coat tails were perpendicular witli the top of 
his head, and the mud flew six feet high at every jump. Woodward 
put him on board an express train, and just as it was about to start told 
him that he had not touched Blair, for the cartridges were really 
blank. 

" Yes, but the blood ! the blood ! " cried Mac. 

"Well," said Woodward, " you can &mi/ that blood for seventy-five 
cents per bottle at any drug store. You'll find it nicely corked and labeled 
Fine Old Claret Wine. Good-bye!" and ofl" Mac went en route for 
Philadelphia, and he has never been seen in Princeton since. 



: ITEMS. 

A number of minor events in themselves too insignificant for separate 
cJiapters. 

At the middlo of the second term " Typical Forms'' was issued, in 
which criticism of a severe nature was passed upon most of the Sophomores. 
The Rake was distributed at midnight, and created the greatest sensation. 
H. Boyle, Woodruff and Ka.se were the editors, and soon after it 



32 

appeared, Kase was summoned before Dr. Atwater, and was told to go 
home, but he and his "brethren in crime," were excused from this un- 
pleasant episode by a pledge in which they promised never to do so any 
more. The book was elegantly gotten up, and was pronounced by all to 
be the best rake ever published here, which was owing to the enthusiasm 
with which the class entered upon the undertaking. 

Ike Richie was a peculiar fellow, and left college at the end of the 
first term. I don't like to talk behind people's backs, but I must say that 
I never in my life met with such an odd character. 

Whenever his name was called in chapel, every student there assembled 
would answer "Ae/'e. " 

Billy Marr used to torment Isaac continually. | 

" Isaac," he would say, " what is the 3d person, plural, singular, of 
the passive, active, irregular subjunctive participle of the imperative of 
ycyvofjiai ? 

" Maj"^ be pei-hapsyou think I am a ass, and may be perhaps you think 
I don't know,'' Isaac would reply. 

Isaac left for causes unknown, and has never favored us with a single 
call since his departure. 

We had several large fires during the year, and Griis Vandeventer 
used to take a tat pot and blacken the seats regularly, one night each week. 

Kase went alone one night and smashed tutor Rankin's windows with 
stove coal, was apprehended, and suffered numerous disorder marks, but 
was not suspended. 

After the arrival of McCosh, of whose inauguiatioii I will not speak, 
since a full account of it has akeady been published, some bad boys went 
arouud town and painted all the sign boards of the merchants, and also 
daubed inscriptions upon the president's house. It created quite a furor, 
and the very secret manner in which it had been done, prevented any of 
those engaged from being discovered. 

An indignation meeting was held, but it ended in a grand fight with 
bibles and hymn books in the chapel, and the " paint spree" was entirely 
forgotten. 

Our class was unmanageable, and Dr. McCosh could not preserve order 
to save his life. The president would rare and shout, hammer the desk, 
until his knuckles were all black and blue, would tell us that he knew 



33. 

who was maldng the noise, and would send him home, but despite this, 
Billy Marb, would throio his voice, and Dib Bergen tcoiild fire torpedoes. 

The president would give disorder marks to the innocent, and compli- 
ment the most noisy for their good behavior ; he constantly became mixed 
up in his discipline, and was relieved from embarrassment, only when the 
classmen of their own accord, became orderly. 

The Doctor knows young America now, and has the hest order in all 
his recitations. 

Blair Scribner left at the middle of the second term, as did also 
Frank Woodward, and we thus lost two of the finest fellows, two of 
the most liberal, generous and whole souled men in the class. 

The " Heavij Weights'' was a crowd consisting of Boyle, Beynolds, 
Blair, Scribner, McClintock, Stockton and Kase, originally, and 
after a little while. Potts, VandeVenter, and one or two others joined. 
This crowd led everything in the way of fun, and by the faculty they 
were heartily despised. 

They burned Atwater's Ice House, put two cows in the chapel, carried 
a pig in the organ loft, filled the recitation rooms at regular intervals 
with cord wood, old boxes, signs, rails, stones, brick bats, mud and pea 
brush. They painted Prof. Mcllvaine's cow, illuminated Prof Peabody's 
horse, made big bon fires, and did just as they jpleased generally. They 
were sly, and none were ever caught. 

Our ball nine, (for the statistics see another part of this volume,) did 
splendid work, and defeated during the year every nine in college in at 
least one game, if not in a series. 

Dan English, who left at the end of first term to pursue his studies 
abroad, was hazed roughly by some Sophomores— Dan is at present in 
Athens, Grreece. 

At chapel stage speaking by the Seniors, but few of our men carried 
canes. Those who wished to, had done so long before, and those who 
were indifferent, did not care to carry them when " given permission" so 
to do. 

At the end of Freshman year, our whole class cut final examination in 
Mathematics and were forced to pass at the opening of Sophomore year. 

Here then is our history for the first year, which speaks so well for 
itself that we say no more concerning il. 



There is poling to be done, Soph'more lone, 

Soph'more lone ! 
There is poling to be done, Soph'more lone; 
There is poling to be done, 
There are honors to be won, 
And they'll " go for " you like fun, 
Soph'more lone ! 

Don't think you will be eased, Soph'more lone, 

Soph'more lone! 
Don't think you will be eased, Soph'more lone; 
Don't think you will be eased, 
For the Profs' must be appeased 
For every black board greased, 
Soph'more lone ! 

And if dropped should be your fate, Soph'more lone, 

Soph'more lone ! 
And if dropped should be your fate, Soph'more lone ; 
And if dropped should be your fate, 
Pa the day would celebrate 
A hammering your pate, 

Soph'more lone ! 

Then think of mamma's sighs, Soph'more lone, 

Soph'more lone ! 
Then think of mamma's sighs, Soph'more lone ; 
Then think of mamma's sighs. 
And of sister's watery eyes. 
And other sad sun-dries, 

Soph'more lone ! 

Then burn the midnight oil, Soph'more lone 

Soph'more lone! 

Then burn the midnight oil, Soph'more lone 

Then burn the midnight oil. 

Cease not the midnight toil. 

Or a stump your grade will spoil, 

Soph'more lone ! 



SOPHOMORE YEAR. 



PRELUDE. 

What a great day it was for us, and how happy we were ! Oh how 
sweetthe emotion that brought out the smiles upon our faces, and the enthu- 
siasm that kindled the rich glow upon our cheeks, when we, as "new 
fledged" Sophomoi-es, took our seats for the first time upon the other side 
of the chapel ! How we rushed to secure them, and how significant were 
the glances cast over our shoulders at the timid new comers grouped 
together upon our right. Oh it was a grand moment for us, when we 
felt that we had so many to look down upon ! Even the oldest students 
although hustled so closely along side of the chapel stage that the grave 
doctors, in a moment of mental abstraction, might with impunity rest their 
feet upon their senior shoulders, actually forgot their last year's dignity 
and joined in the enthusiasm at our end of the aisle. Truly if there is a 
time in a student's life when the acme of greatness seems to be attained, 
when he detects in himself an inclination to strut, when the fit of his 
garments is marvelous, and the part in his back hair mathematically exact, 
it is just at the beginning of the Sophomore year — and if there is a time 
when his days are dark, when his inmost soul is troubled, perplexed and 
harrowed, when he is entirely indiiferent alike to boots and to back hair, 
it is at the end of the second year. 

It is very " nice and pretty," to come back and feel that you are infi- 
nitely greater than you were " last year" — to parade through the thor- 
oughfares, and feel no obligation to touch your hat in answer to a bow 
from an advancing tutor, to talk of the time when " you were a Fresh- 



36 

man" as though the interim had seen nations decay, and new generations 
born. 

It is exciting to conceal your form with a great coat, to destroy the 
identity of your face with a black mask, and with immense pipes to call 
upon the innocent Freshmen and "smoke 'em out." Then comes the 
cane rush, the circus, and the annual bonfires of the political campaign. 
All these things are pleasant but by what bitter episodes are they supple- 
mented ! What Freshman before me now knows of the horrors which 
will meet him mid way in his path, to ftighten, to tdrture, to utterly smite 
and terrify? Oh that wild, wild delirium ! Oh the horrors of those mid- 
night hours when before your eyes revolves sines, cosines, hyperbolas, 
parabolas ! when a thousand mathematical demons writhe and twist in 
the empty air, until you feel some triangle working at your feet, and a 
diabolical circle tightening around your neck, preparatory to boxing you 
up in a square. 

You don't care what becomes of you ! You get reckless ! You loaf 
around public places and try to get up a row between two of your best 
friends. A dogfight makes you unutterably happy ! You become con- 
fused ; you don't know half the time whether you are " a foot" or " a 
horseback," and emaciate yourself in trying to recall your own name. 
Then you get desperate ; you write to your darling, to whom you pledged 
everlasting, eternal love, that you don't want to hear from her any more : 
that you don't love her a bit, that she ain't any better than any one else, 
and conclude your i-emarks by advising her to learn how to spell. 

You take the New York Clipper, read murder stories, and feel in your 
soul a longing, that will not be satisfied until you see some man hung ! 
you abuse your darkey, and hurl a spittoon at him whenever you catch a 
glimpse of his head, and of the 1000 little negroes who are annually abused, 
999 are abased by Sophomores. 

Then you sink down overwhelmed. You become horrified as the con- 
viction is forced upon you that you are in an immense grinding machine, 
from which you will ultimately develop in a yard of sausage. 

Oh it is, it is tough, and it is just like sleeping upon broken glass — 
you can't get used to it ! ! ! 

If we should take the trouble to portray one-half the horrors identified 
with this year, by giving a page, here and there, from our own individual 
experience, we are confident that two-thirds of the coming Sophomore 



11 

class would withdraw, and walk in humbler patlis (if life than these : but 
we do not wish to say anj^thing that will discourage anj^ bodj^, because it 
is not a proper thing for us to do. 

The innocent Freshman after successfully passing the last examination 
between him and Sophomore year, rushes usually to the telegraph office to 
lethis sister know that he is coming home. Arrivingthere he darts into the 
old house, hurls his hat in his sister's lap, and, grasping the hand of his 
father, cries out at the top of his voice : 

" Hurrah ! pop, I'm a Sophomore ! " 

Then he goes over where his sister is, and sits at her feet, puts his 
hands within hers, and looking up in her face begs her to tell him of 
Fanny, the little girl whom he loves lots ; then, as if led by a noble in- 
stinct, the good, old dog appears in the doorway'-, and wags him welcome, 
he advances to meet the brute, pats him upon the head, and calls him a 
good, thoughtful old dog. He is hapi^y, and grandma looks over her 
glasses and blesses the boy. 

Vacation is over ; he returns to his studies ; the delirium comes upon 
him, and leaves him weary and worn at the end of the first term of Sopho- 
more year. Does he rush to the telegraph office now ? Oh no 1 he is 
willing to, but he hasn't the nerve. Oh how weak he is ! How blanched 
his cheeks ! How faltering his foot-stsps ! Hov/ he starts at the rustle 
of a leaf! How nervously twitch the muscles of his face, and how con- 
stantly his fingers move as if longing to grasp something. There is a 
hunger in cheek and eye, a fierce color steals within them sometimes, and 
again, they grow blank in unutterable despair. 

He slept over breakfast, the train leaves before dinner, — and he's hun- 
gry — oh if he had but a cranberry seed ! ! He wonders how he will be 
able to reach the depot. Oh, good Fortune ! Dennis wheels him down 
upon the top of a trunk ; he thanks Dennis ; thanks Dennis a great deal : 
thanks Dennis with tears in his eyes, and almost brings tears into Dennis' 
eyes by giving him a dollar. 

He gets on board the cars, takes no note whatever of the passengers, 
but wonders Vhy the Devil the conductor can't remember where he's 
going without making him show his ticket every five minutes. 

He arrives home ; he steals into the house ; horrors past, and darker 
horrors yet to come crowd down upon him. He don't care too see any 



38 

one ; he feels that an hour's sleep, followed by a pound of steak, might 
do wonders. 

His sister meets him ; he don't whirl his hat now, but he keeps it 
drawn tightly over his eyes; he don't see why his sister 7i:?sses him so 
much for ; guesses she can feel " glad to see him" without Jdssing him 
all the time. 

No! he don't want to hear anything about Fanny — his Fanny — she 
ain't his Fanny, never teas, never will be, either, if he knows anything 
about it (and he thinks he does;) don't see what makes his sister act so 
foolishly all the time. Then the same old dog appears to welcome him 
again ; he sees that dog ; he goes for that dog ; he raises that dog three 
feet ; the poor animal imagines he has run against an elephant in disguise 
and his disappearance is as immediate as though he had ^' gojieup" by 
spontaneous combustion. He'sgrum ! and grandma looks over her glasses 
and wonders what on earth is the matter with the boy, and suggests pep- 
permint. 

So much for the prelude to the most trying, the most dull and stupid 
year of the course. But let us proceed with this history passing over the 
old stereotyped cane rush, which has formed a chapter in almost every 
class history from time immemorial. 



CHAPTER I. 



Our Grape Pickers. 

In a class containing so many members as om's, there are many, who 
aside from their regular collegiate duties are engaged in a great many 
foreign pursuits ; thus I have shown how some were in diligent search 
for washerwomen — some who had great love for wooden Indians ; and 
some who met each other to fight for their honor upon the bloody field. 
I now come to another class difi'ering entirely from those already mentioned 
— which class, for reasons best known to themselves, I shall denominate 
grape pickers. 

At the beginning of Sophomore year there were, among the many new 
men, who entered our class, two young and innocent individuals, distin- 
guished by many good and generous qualities, which individuals were 
named respectively William Pearson and Joseph Boyd. 

You have seen a hawk stand aloof when the old hen was around with her 
brood of chickens, and you have seen that aforesaid hawk with all the 
treachery characteristic of its race, the very moment the mother hen's 
back was turned, circle and circle in mid air, gradually and gradually ap- 
proach its innocent victim, at last dart down like a lightning stroke, grasp 
a chick and mount in the air triumphantly a moment after ? 

A fate equally disastrous was dealt out to those two unfortunate young 
men. They came to us in all the innocence of childhood, and we received 
them with open arms. We ate their gingerbead just exactly as we would 
have eaten our own, we smoked their cigars feeling infinitely more ami- 
able than we would have felt, had we paid for the cigars ourselves ; 
we gushed warmly over these two boys, and tried early to initiate them 
into all the mysteries of college life. But alas ! alas ! one unlucky day 
when our backs were turned the hawks descended and the goslins were 
gobbled. 



40 

Newies always have a passion to associate with upper classmen, it is a 
fault which only some terrible midnight experience can remove. You may 
talk to them until the hairs upon your head grow silvery, aud eventually 
drop oiF leaving your caput bare, but they will do it, it is a rule. 

Joseph Boyd and William Paerson were not, alas ! exceptions to 
this rule. We warned them of the pernicious eiFect that would, as sure 
as fate, result from this intimacy, they took no heed, but passed on and 
walked directly in a hornet's nest. 

Late one night they were over in West College enjoying the tobacco 
and the hospitality of two seniors, one of whom we shall call Senior A., 
and the other Senior B. 

The two boys were having a real good time, they thought, basking in 
each other's wit, (a sort of mutual admiration society), when Senior A. 
said ; 

" G-racious ! how well some grapes would go to-night ! " 

" Wouldn^ t they though," said Senior B. 

William Pearson and Joseph Boyd agreed with Senior A. and 
Senior B. 

The liaivks are on the Qui Vive. 

' ' One of our boys went out last night and got two pillow cases chuck 
full," said Senior A. 

" Is that sof" asked Senior B. 

"Yes it is!" answered Senior A., "and he said that the vine was 
just so full that he laid down and laughed at 'em." 

"He did?" asked Senior B. 

" Pie did ! " Senior A. returned. 

The hawks are beginning to circle. 

"I tell you," said Senior B., " there is nothing so fine as grapes; ap- 
ples, and peaches, and pears are good, to be sure, but people don't hanker 
after them as they hanker after grapes." 

" Yes you're right," put in Senior A. " they are good, and often grow 
ripe from the words of love whispered by moonlight under the arbor. ' ' 

The haivhs are rapidly nearing their victims. 

" they are jaat dead ripe ! " said Senior B. 

" how I'd like to have some ! " cried Senior A. 

" Whatistliereasonwecan'tgoaftersome ? " cried Joseph Boyd, which 
being interpreted is 



41 

" What is the reason we can't go after some ! " 

" No reason at all," cried Senior A. 

" We can easily do it," said Senior B. 

" Well let's go ! " Joseph Boyd spoke, 

" Yes, let's," Billy Pearso reiterated. 

Alas, alas ! my ! ! my ! alas ! the chickens are caught. 

" Well now " said Senior B., " I'll tell you how we'll fix it. We must 
act quickly, 'cause those who act quickly never get caught. I'll go down 
to the place where the grapes grow and see that everything is all right. 
If I don't come back here in five minutes, why it will mean that every- 
thing is regular. Understand?" 

" yes ! " said Joseph. 

" You just bet! " said William. 

Senior B. left the room and as he went down the dark stairways he 
pulled a six shooter from his pocket, and carried it in his hand ; passing 
out he wended his way down to the spot where the towers of our gymna- 
sium were then just beginning to rise. 

Senior A., Joseph and William watched the hands of the clock until 
they had left seven golden minutes in the past, when, feeling sure that 
everything was all right, they started out for glory or for grapes. 

The night was dark ; darkness was so thick that you could almost cut 
it with a knife ; pedestrians along our thoroughfares had to carry lanterna 
to see our street lamps burn. I assure you it was awful dark. 

Senior A. took them over the same course Senior B. had taken a few 
moments before, when arriving at Prof Guyot's garden they paused. 

" Now " said Senior A., " you fellows jump over the fence and get 
your hats full, I'll watch." 

" Yes, but Jewhitaker, ain't it shaded though? " — cried Joseph. 

"Dark as Blazes ! " returned William. 

"Come! come! come! get over," whispered Senior A., "or some- 
body' 11 hear us." 

Over the fence they scrambled, and began groping round in the dark 
for the vines. 

Now there wasn't a grape anywhere in the neighborhood, for it was 
nothing but a confounded old potato patch, but Joseph and William 
were innocent of the appalling fact. By and by Joseph cried, 

" Do grapes grow on vines about knee high, William ? " 



42 

"No!" said Billy. 

" Then, by Gosh, I've got hold of o, pumpkin vine," said Joseph. 

Joseph still searched, when by and by he went up against the fence 
on the other side of the garden ker-slap, 

" Come over here William I've found 'em," he cried. "Nolain't,- 
confoundit:Jewhitakerain'titdark ! " 

Just then Senior B. jumped up from his place of concealment, and 
cried at the top of his voice. 

" Ha ! Ha ! my fine scoundrels I've got you now ! " 

Bang ! Bang ! Bang ! and three pistol shots cracked upon the air. 

" Mercy on us," cried William Pearson, as with one grand unpar- 
alleled leap he cleared the high fence without touching a thread of his 
apparel ; over across the fields he went at a reckless speed — stumbling at 
every sten. Joseph Boyd was scared, each particular hair upon his head 
stood up, 

" Like quills upon the fretful porcupig," 

and he would have given $25, to have been able to get on ( hat fence in 
any way. At last in ' ' downright desperation, ' ' he pulled out his revolver 
and fired in the direction from which the former pistol shots had proceeded. 

Senior B. heard a ball whiz right along side of his favorite and he was 
scared, and they say the velocity with which he left those premises com- 
pletely eclipsed Dexter' s best time— and we expected that Mr. Bonner 
would at once enter into negotiations to secure Senior B., he could have 
been bought cheap just then. 

Meanwhile all West College had been aroused, and yells and laughter 
greeted Joseph as he came along, and just then it flashed into his mind 
that he had been " egregiously imposed upon.'' 

William Pearson arrived home sometime the next morning, and he 
said he had an indistinct idea of having fallen in some stream, which must 
have been either the Delaware River or Stony Brook. 

N. B. Frank Taylor was also one of the unfortunate grape pickers, 
as your historian has lately discovered. 



CHAPTER II. 



Midnight Mechanics. 



The boys all came back at the opening of the second term, to witness 
the "Inaugural exercises of the Grymnasium." 

Of the speeches delivered upon that occasion it does not become ob- 
ligatory for us to speak, since our class took no conspicuous part in the 
ceremonies. 

For many weeks everybody was orderly and quiet, and things would 
have continued so no doubt for a great many weeks longer, had it not 
been for those awful rainy days ; it rained more or less every day for six 
weeks until our beautiful campus was navigable, while to reach the Gym- 
nasium was almost an impossibility. 

Could we see the propriety of setting out through mud and water knee 
deep to swing the clubs ? 

No. 

Had the facultv taken any pains to build a walk for us ? 

No. 

Well then what was to be done ? and echo asked and answered what 
was to be done. 

The sight of Groldie's broad shoulders, full chest and tawny, muscular 
arms, had rendered physical culture too popular to be neglected, but what 
was to be done ? Crowd asked crowd what was to be done ? student asked 
student what was to be done ? it was at the same time the query of the 
individual and of the multitude. Our philosophers were non-plussed, 
and our engineers at a stand still. What ivas to be done ? 

The members of this gallant class forsook everything else for the solu- 
tion of this master problem ; it entered within their minds and became 
at last a part of themselves ; it was the ghost of the breakfast table and 
the ptantom that chased them in their dreams. What was to be done? 



44 

The question grew more and more perplexing, the sun shone less and 
less, the winds blew harder and harder and the rain fell more and more. 
Minds grew more melancholy, forms grew more and more meagre, phy- 
sicians were summoned frequently and mathematics actually became dull. 
What was to be done ? 

Great men '' nascitur non fit," heroes appear once in a century, victors 
once in an age. They spring up like mushrooms in a night, to answer 
the call of mankind when nations are in distress. 

The men of our century were looking for the advent of their hero, but 
as yet he had not come, many a soul had longed and waited until upon its 
head fell the white frost of long years, until the " sun and the moon and 
the stars are darkened" and the spark went out. 

There had been men who uttered predictions and who "stretched their 
hands out in the empty air and strained their eyes into the heavy night" 
but the hero came not. Wonders had been truly wrought — mountains 
had been tunnelled, seas plowed, cataracts spanned and worlds girdled, 
art and science had gone on side by side, creating new beings, and discover- 
ing new affinities, but the nation's harp was yet to awaken beneath the 
touch of the master's fingers, and the nation's monument was yet to arise 
at the touch of the master's hand. 

At length he came ; the great man of the nineteenth century came, 
sprang up to answer this great and momentous question, "What was 
to be done?" 

Bishop SHORTT arose and cried : " Tear down the fences, and 

BUILD A "WALK OURSELVES. ' ' 

Build a walk ourselves, and in two hours the news spread like wild- 
fire ; build a walk ourselves, and the problem was solved ; build a walk 
ourselves — the idea was developed at the breakfast table and lived and 
grew in the recitation rooms ; build a walk ourselves and the prelimina- 
ries were arranged immediately at Streeper's and at Stelle's. Bishop 
SnoRTTwas elected civil engineer, and was to submit his plans to the 
members of The Set The College to Rights Association, that very night. 

Set The College To Eights Association, be it known, is an organiza- 
tion with which every member of this class is identified either in body or 
in spirit, whose duty has been to see to all the internal improvements of 
the College. 



45 

To see that all ill-formed fences are properly torn down and destroyed 
at regular intervals around the old cannon. 

To learn by a severe critical examination whether all the gates about 
town swing as they ought to, and to better their automatic action by 
changing their base of operations every now and then. 

To discover by trial, whether all the door bells attached to the man- 
sions of our citizens ring as all respectable door bells should. 

To see that every member of the faculty is safe and sound at home by 
10 P. M. 

To oversee all affairs, a proper disposal of which may accrue to the 
benefit of our heirs, successors or assigns. 

Below is submitted a few of the resolutions of this society, read at the 
first meeting and never thought of afterward : 

Resolutions. 

Resolved, That this business be called The Set The College To Eights 
Association^ or anything else. 

Resolved, That we positively will not tamper ourselves with constitu- 
tion, by-laws or dues. 

Resolved, That every man elect himself to an office, which office he 
must hold until he dies ; (this is done to prevent any election quarrels.) 

Resolved, That if two men elect themselves to the same office neither 
one of them can have it ; if three men elect themselves, the one that can 
euchre the other two in three straight games can secure said office ; if all 
elect themselves to fill the same office, resolved that the association dis- 
hand in disgust. 

Resolved, That one constitutes a quorum. 

Resolved, That if at any meeting one brother feels an inclination to 
punch another brother's head, both brothers must retire to the punching 
room where a good supply of slop buckets and sponges are kept constantly 
on hand. 

Resolved, That we have no more resolutions. 

The association met that night ; every member being an officer they 
took their seats in a semi-circle, resembling a band of minstrels. Bishop 
Shortt acting as " brudder bones" on one end and Tyree as tambourine 
on the other. 

When the chairs were mostly occupied the President cried out, ' ' Are 
all the members gathered in ? if not let us suppose they are gathered out, 



46 

and go on with tlie meeting, let the neophyte who hath the plan of oper- 
ation and attack, now desplay it to his assembled brethren. 

Shortt then arose and submitted his plan. He had everything fixed 
according to the highest principles of diplomatic shrewdness. He had 
the fence from which we were to get the material to build the walk all 
drawn out nicely; rather a hard looking sketch, but then you must bear 
in mind it was rather a hard looking fence to draw. He had our party 
all divided into groups, the member of each group being represented by 
straight lines. Being always a great student of Natural History, and 
having noticed the peculiarities of all birds, particularly the a-ow, he had 
sentinels stationed here and there who should herald the approach of 
reckless tutors by blowing u])on big tin horns. He showed the exact 
panels to be first attacked, and in a word he had done everything to the 
best of his judgment and abihty. 

The president arose and moved that a committee of applause be ap- 
pointed — and as every one in the room seconded the motion, the president 
thought it would be a waste of time to put the question to vote, as he 
immediately appointed himself as a committee. 

Lemuel Tyree, who had taken up the plan, cried out: 

" Stand aloof! This ideal plan is a practical failure. The fence runs 
East and West, while this plan has it running North and South. I insist 
sir that the fence runs East and West. The fence, gentlemen, the fence 1 ' ' 

The president told Tyree to dry up about the fence, 'cause the fence 
was not to blame. 

Mr. Shortt said he didn't want to have his plan spoken of in that 
manner. 

Mr. Tyree replied that he didn't mean to cast any slur upon the plan, 
but he wished to convince the meeting that Mr. Shortt's afternoon naps 
had kept him from acquiring a good knowledge of the neighborhood, and 
had completely obliterated all the knowledge that he might have once 
possessed concerning it. 

Mr. Shortt accepted Mr. Tyree's apology, and his plan was laid 
under the table. 

Mr. Tyree was called upon to draw up a plan ; but as he was entirely 
unable to draw a line, straight enough and of the length necessary to 
represent the fence he kept the meeting for a long time in a state of pain- 



47 

ful expectancy. All at once a lucky thought struck him, so instead of 
drawuig a straight line he simply wrote : 
y ■=! ax + b. 

Mr. Shortt denounced this bitterly, and Mr. Tyree's plan was laid 
in the stove. 

Mr. McMiCKEN then arose and said he thought it would be well to 
wake up the secretary, who, at the onset of the debate, had retired to the 
back room. 

Mr. McMlCKEN found the secretary enjoying a delicious repose, woke 
him up and informed him of what had transpired. A few minutes after 
the secretary appeared in the back door, destitute of coat, vest, collar and. 
boots ; he said : 

" We now have appointed all the men whom we can trust, to draw a 
plan except our honorable piesident, and since he took last in Mathemat- 
ics he is of course, unfortunately, ignorant of all the points of the com- 
pass ; now, since we are unable to find out whether the fence runs North 
and South, or East and West, 1 move that a committee be at once 
appointed to hring in that fence. 

And he withdrew to the back room again. 

After an hour's warm debate, during which the president vainly insist- 
ed that eight of the brothers should retire to the "punching room," it 
was resolved that the best plan would be no plan at all, and this plan was 
adopted. At about 2 o'clock in the morning the boys were on hand and 
such ripping and crashing, yanking and pounding never took place before 
in the history of Nassau. All at once a fellow came around the corner 
and announced that a tutor was coming with a great big lantern, but it 
was subsequently ascertained that our informant had seen a lightning hug, 
and work was resumed, and in a few hours the walk such as it was, was 
completed. After most of the boys had gone home Shortt still worked 
with a vehemence that this gentleman had never shown before and never 
displayed since. He had a long piece of scantling in his hand— he poised 
the mighty javelin in the air ; he drove it forward ; a yell, an ait'ful yell 
assured us' that the bolt had gone through the fence and struck somebody 
on the head; subsequent investigations proved it to be McMicken Avho 
was discovered in the pale moonlight, holding his head, and howling dis- 



48 

mally, halfway down to the ball ground where he had been carried by 
the force of the blow. 

There was a bump along side of his head and that bump began to grow. 
I never did see a bump grow like that one. By nine o'clock in the morn- 
ing it resembled a huge peach basket, and it was all McMicken could do 
to hold it in his hands. His friends visited his room frequently during 
the day in order to ascertain which was the lump and which was McMicken, 
indeed it is positively asserted that Mac, at one time, entertained serious 
intentions of sending over after Prof Guyot that he might ascertain the 
height of this lump by the aid of the spirit level; but the enthusiasm of 
the midnight mechanics was not without its effect, for in less than a 
week the faculty kindly supplied us with a broad and high plank walk. 



CHAPTER III. 



The Burial of Matthew-Matics. 

There was commotion in Seventy-Two ! The professor's vanishing 
coat tails had disappeared through the door way, and the twelve o'clock 
bell stood on its head a hundred times as it rang out its chimes, but the 
members of the class, wont to run out without dismissal at the first sound 
from North College tower, kept their seats and no one spoke a word. ^ 

The president's chair was empty, the seat of the secretary unoccupied, 
and for fully five minutes each man gazed upon the blank face of hia 
neighbor as if to read there the cause for which he remained, and the 
reason for this unusual solemnity. 

By and by the mutterings grew more and more audible upon the back 
bench, there was a whistle, then a stamp, then a wild prolonged cheer as 
Cotton Wilson with a few grand strides, gained the desk which con- 
fronted the class and demanded the ears of his classmates. 

Cotton never was enthusiastic for nothing ; he did not become excited 
over trifles. No ! no ! There was cause for this wild vehemence, and 
what it was let the sequel show. 

"Classmates" !! said he with a quick nervous bow, and with an 
inward lurch of the neck accompanied with an outward extension of 
the hands—" Classmates ! ! my soul is grieved !" 

You would have thought his classmates were glad of his bereavement, 
if you could have heard the yell which greeted his opening remarks. 

" Classmates ! ! !" he repeated again, stepping forward a pace or two, 
and striking the desk a blow with his ponderous fist, that came nigh 
crushing it. 

" Classmates! 1 I tell you my spirit is deeply grieved, deeplier than 
to my recollection, it has ever been before, deeplier than in my private 
opinion it will ever be again ; Grentlemen, the emotion I am now experi- 



50 

encing are deeplmt. And why? I repeat it — and why? Is it because 
we are few in numbers? is it because we are misused? Is it because we 
fail to come up to the demands which the reverend doctors make upon 
us ? Oh no, but because we fail to comply with the demands which our 
simple association with each other makes, and fail to recognize the claims 
which one brother of '72 is justified in advancing to another. 

" Oh classmates, why this lassitude, why this continued apathy?" 

"I give it up'" said Captain Brad ; " stop asking your darned old 
conundrums." 

The unearthly tumult that ensued here, gave Captain Brad an assur- 
ance that his casual remark expressed a public sentiment, and also afforded 
the stump orator sufficient time to master his emotion. 

"Jfcet j'our mind run back to the past," cried Cotton. "Let your 
minds review all the glories of our ancient career and what does this class 
represent? Why sirs we resemble a band of brothers; in every issue 
coming forth as we went in, a powerful unbroken circle. And what are 
we now? What has become of our friendship, our enthusiasm and what 
have we lately accomplished ? The laurels of the past are fading, they 
were once blight, but alas ! time keeps nothing green ; at the touch of the 
frost king all things are made hoary, and all that is bright in the present 
is soon buried in that eternal stream which flows from the past, and 
almost touches the realm of the mysterious future ; even now we catch a 
glimpse of the white caps as the breakers roll in on the sand ; even now 
we see the black sea .swallowing up what was once the boast of our union 
and the triumph of our masterly endeavor ; shall we then remain silent? 
Shall we sit calmly here and let our prestige die on account of our inac- 
tivity?" 

" Not much !" cried Cotton hammering the wood as though he were 
a blacksmith and the desk were a forge. 

" Not much!" cried the class with a yell, as each member whirled 
his text book at some other member's head. 

"Well then," continued the orator, "we must work; we must con- 
trive something grand ; we must do something unusual, something tre- 
mendously immense, or else we faint — we die, hy gosh ! ! ! .'" 

Cotton descended from his position, and a deep silence prevailed as 
he walked up the narrow aisle leading to the door ; he did not withdraw, 
but pausing upon the threshold cried, 



51 

" As one interested in the common cause, as one whom experience has 
taught to respect, as one whose rare qualities and honorable years entitle 
him to our confidence, I call upon John Oliver to give us his opinion 
in the midst of this awful impending crisis." 

A thunder of applause answered this request, and contrary to the 
anticipation of the class John Oliver sprang to his feet with the agility 
of a circus man and as he faced his classmates was hailed with the warm- 
est exclamations of delight. 

" I most heartily concur," said the heroic John, " with the sentiments 
of the gentleman who has called for my remarks. I too have noticed this 
general inactivity, this withdrawing from brotherly intercourse, this living 
for self, and I too have wondered how new lii'e, new activity might be 
instilled within the veins of my indifferent companions; I simply state 
the disease, let some one who shall succeed me prescribe the remedy — I 
simply speak because I have been called upon to do so, not in response 
to any inclination of my own, but I will say this, that unless something is 
done, there will be nothing to represent our co-operation and friendship 
or our patriotism to our noble class. I will say more that unless something 
is done at once^ our class will have a record when we graduate from which 
wo will all turn in disgust. ' ' 

CouM we believe our ears ? What ! ! ! John Oliver talk so ! In an 
instant a solemnity passed over the meeting and most rigid order was 
thenceforth preserved. That which fii-st had been started as burlesque, 
owing to a few earnest words had been rendered as solemn as a prayer 
meeting. 

A dozen men spoke ; something must be done in which we could all 
take a hand, and in which some system could be involved. We must 
concoct something in which there would be hearty co-operation : some- 
thing which would startle the other classes, and win from them admiration 
and applause. 

One plan after another was denied ; each man who spoke had some 
scheme in which to involve the members of the class; manj" were the 
sprees, the ceremonies proposed ; but none of them seemed to fulfill the 
present demand. 

Who was it came to tlie rescue just when we were most in despair? 
Who was it by a single sentence called forth the wildest cheers ; that woo 



52 

from every member of the class a personal demonstration of hilarious 
gratitude such as subsequently has never been shown ? 

Why, little Andy McCh'ntock. 

" Fellows," said he " Let us have a modi fimeral amd bury Tngonom- 
dry.'" 

Oh what a hero x\ndy was ! How picturesque he appeared with his 
broad face all aglow and his huge form trembling with excitement of the 
moment. How the boys shouted ! How the boys all cheered him — how 
fortunate to think of such a thing at such a time. 

The wildest excitement prevailed, committees were appointed and the 
faculty in response to their petition sent in to our class a favorable reply; 
the following officers and orators were elected and the conspicuous part 
which every one played is clearly shown below in the programme : 

ORDER OF PROCESSION. 

Chief Neophyte G. H. Badeau 

Chief Chorister M. S. Shotwell 

MUSIC. 

High Priest H. B. Shoett 

Orator Karl Kask 

Pod. D. Deckkk 

Lamentation Orator U. C. Lenher 



Torch Bearers. 



A. \\'IT.L1AMS, 



W. R. Frame. 



T(,)rch Beiirers. 
W. Jon:;soa, 
A. Deveekaux, 
A. Johnson, 



Pall Bearers. 
B. Reynolds, 
A. McCli-vtock, 

},. iJjiWART, 



Pall Bearers. 
Iv. W. Jewull, 
N. W. Wells, 
C. Camm, 



Torch Bearers. 
VV. B. Shoett, 
A. Atwater, 
W, Lane. 



Torch Bearers. 



F. Taylor, 



J. Perkins. 



f J. E. Woodruff 
■jj. D. 



Midnight Minion John Oliver 

Sexton 

: ■■■■■■■{i: 

Members of Class. 

Line of March last time around the triangle. 



Grave Diggers , 



Davis. 
Wilson 
Boyd. 



53 
CEREMONIES. 

Around the Cannon, at 12, midnight. 

MVSIC. 

"Melancholy Dirge," with Anvil Chorus. , 

ORATION (Sub.) O Me ! O My ! Alas ! O Dear ! Alas ! KARL KA8E 

POEM (Sub.) " Is this the Last? Eh ?" D. DECKER 

OBSEQUIES. 

The body will be burnt in ye most classic style. 

The lighting of the Pyre » H. B. Shobtt 

Lamentation John Clarence Lenheb 

SONGS. 
Dig the Grave out Deep and fill the Grave up Full. 

Sophomorical Peace Jubilee. 

Anvil Chorus 
SONG. 
"All the Soph'mores are a Weeping." 
Demonstrations of Joj', with Solo on the Equinine Violin. 

COMMITTEE. 

K.4RL Kase, J. D. Davis, J. E. Woodbuff, M. S. Shovwsli,, 

J. F. Perkins, W. R. Frame, A. Johnson. 

At eleven o'clock grotesque forms danced like spectres before this 
gymnasium, and wild mj'sterious and unearthly sounds rolled up from this 
labj'rinth of darkness, anon light began to gleam here and there, the 
wierd throng increased in numbers until in the shadow of our proud- 
est edifice a hundred phantastic souls held high carnival. A stranger 
would have shuddered, and his blood would have thickened at the sight. 
The long black coffin i-ested upon its rude bier, the top was knocked off, 
and most of the fellows used it as a spittoon while they put on the cos- 
tume of the evening. 

Soon the procession moved — there were a hundred forms dressed in 
white sheets with broad black trimmings. There were mourners, pall 
bearers, and about the bier flashed fifty gleaming lanterns. 

On the procession moved solemn and slow — the boys singing their 
plaintive funeral dirge. 



54 

AiB — Old Grimes. 

Old Mat' is dead, that good old soul, 
We ne'er shall see him more ; 
He used to worry out the life 
Of every Soph-o-more. 

He always came on Monday noon, 
And tried us hard and sore ; 
But since he's dead and buried 
He won't come any more. 

And so in peace we lay him here, 
And bid a long adieu ; 
No more he'll pester unto death ; 
The sons of Seventy-two. 



And let each member of this class 
Behold their conqueror dead; 
And let their tears fall thick and fast 
As he is plan-ti-ed. 

Around the triangle the crowd proceeded, passing through Mrs. Thom- 
son's garden and receiving from her generous hands many beautiful lant- 
erns. Returning the mourners thronged about the cannon. 
The Poem was a good one, and \^e here produce it : 

"Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils. 
Shrunk to this little measure ?" 

All nature rests. The turmoil of the day 
In quiet slumber now has died away. 
The radiant banner of the day is furled ; — 
Night's sable mantle shrouds a slumbering world. 

Long since, the day-god, in his splendor dressed, 
Kolled his bright chariot to the distant west, 
And now, with light and animation, fills 
The realms beyond the far Hesperian hills. 
E'en Luna, too, fair goddess of the night. 
Fails to dispense her pale and mellow light. 
By yon far-distant, circling belt of blue, 
Her crescent form is hidden from our view. 
Thus, double darkness rests on hill and plain. 
As night resumes her solitary reign. 

Hushed are the tones of that old college bell. 
No more does its familiar music swell 



55 



Upon the air in accents of delight. 

O how its silence adds to gloom to-night ! 

(Can't some good fellow break that boxing through 

And give the bell-rope just a pull or two?) 

A few short hours ago and all was glee ; 
No thought of grief— all life and gaiety. 
But now — how changed ! along these shaded walks 
No newie steals, nor lordly senior stalks. 
No reunited cla,s.smates gather there ; 
,No honored guests, no ladies gay and fair, 
Whose radiance banishes each trace of care. 
Methinks the absence of their cheerful light 
Would quite suffice to turn the day to night. 
But, "cheese" this moralizing. To resume, 
A silence, like the silence of the tomb, 
Now wraps this venerated town in gloom. 

'Tis midnight! 'tis that dread and solemn hour 
When drow-sy Morpheus holds within his power 
His willing subjects, their acknowledged chief. 
Sleep on ! ye happy hearts, untouched by grief! 
Sleep on in peace ! Far distant be the day 
When grief like ours shall steal across your way ! 

Yes, grief like ours ; for, in its fiendish wrath, 

A thunderbolt has fallen in our path. 

Grief, cruel Grief, has lain his crushing hand 

Upon each member of our stricken band. 

Who now with heavy hearts and measured tread. 

Have gathered here with their lamented dead, 

To give the body to its native earth. 

And pay a tribute to departed worth. 

(Just here our feelings struggle for a vent 

Like new-made wine beginning to ferment.) 

With mingled feelings we recall the day 

When that benignant spirit passed away ; 

The day we met and bade a last adieu 

At that affecting final interview. 

Awhile we sat in silence ; no one spoke. 

At last a voice the painful stilness broke. 

" Methinks " said Smith, a dew drop in his eye, 

"That Matthew's pegging out. He's bound to die.'' 

"Indeed" quoth Boyd "That tastes me very high," 

" Doubtless " respondedCoTTON Wilson's voice ; 

" Boyd if he should, whew! wont we two rejoice; 

Now, on the Pope's infallibility, 

It seems that you and I can not agree, 



56 

But here we seem to think alike you see. 
Besides, I think, 'twill cure this apathy,— 
That which has bored me mnch " more than a few " 
E'er since it first appeared in '72." 

Here our Imposing minion took the floor, 

And, straightening up some several feet or more, 

" My friends," he said, " let this disturbance cease. 

It caps the very climax of disgrace, 

'Tis shameful, villainous, supremely base. 

To talk in such a style in such a place. 

Now Boyd and Cotton here I know them two ; 

The've got some funeral office in their view. 

So I repeat let this disturbance cease 

As your class president I call for peace." 

Dread silence reignSd more deeply than before 

Until a smitten Hart remarked " Hoor-roar ! " 

Now, all this time, the slowly wasting sands 

Of Matthew's life were running out. His hands 

Soon dropped the chalk. His pulse grew very weak, 

Fainter and fainter, till, too faint to speak, 

He made a sine with his expiring breath. 

And shewed his ruling passion strong in death. 

To give a formula he vainly tried ; 

His limbs relaxed, his hands fell to his side,— 

"Juniors!" we shrieked when Matthew Matics died. 

Oh say thou ancient relic,* thou hast been 
Through many a fierce and many a trying scene, 
And miseries of which thou ne'er hast told, 
But tell me ; didst thou ever yet behold. 
Or is it likely that thou wilt again, 
So sad a set of " melancholy men ? " 
********** 

Thus from our midst has Matthew Matics passed. 
We pause to ask. " Is this to be the last ? " 

Is this the last ? Upon this solemn bier 

His bloodless form reclines ; but, must we here 

Entomb his memory too ? Ne'er be It said 

That dark oblivion was his lasting bed. 

Such graceless conduct we could ne'er forgive ; 

No, Matthew, in our memory then shall live. 

Whene'er we pause, as we will often do, 
Pause to enjoy a retrospective view. 
Of our relation with poor Mat-thi-ew, 



*The cannon. 



57 

Mid pleasant memories others will intrude, 
Reminding us of our ingratitude. 

When Matthew, in his mildest way, would ask 
The strict performance of a stated task, 
How oft his mild authority we dared 
By sullenly responding — " unprepared .'" 
At other times, when "indisposed " to pole, 
But " muchly " ready for a country stroll. 
Knowing a " cut " was neater than a " tear," 
And nothing healthier than the country air. 
Then Euclid's lines and angles we forsook; 
The lines we poled were fastened to a hook, — 
The angle pa,rt was done at Stony Brook. 

Cast in the shade those little cuts appear 
By our great cut^the last of Freshmen year. 
That cut the dear departed to the heart, 
And, roused to indignation by the smart, 
He put his foot down iirmly. Soon we knew 
What his reserved authority could do. 
Oh what a fix were we poor freshmen in ! 
For two long months afflicted with the " grin I" 
That Soph promotion tarried till the fall. 
" This was the most unkindest cut of all." 

When,— all our days of preparation past. 

We gain a long-sought eminence at last. 

Obtain the prey we scented from afar 

And fleece our helpless victims at the bar,— 

When, as the tide of politics rolls on,— 

Within its all-engulfing vortex, drawn 

We " stump the state " for law and liberty,— 

We'll think then, Matthew, how we stumped for thei. 

Or. if, in struggling for a post of fame, 

We fail to reach the object of our aim 

And, disappointed in the exciting race 

We take a useful but a humbler place. 

As country doctors or as farmers, toil, 

Digging out teeth, or digging in the soil, 

E'en then his teachings will produce their fruits, 

Who taught us all about extracting roots. 

Thus in whatever sphere our lot be cast 
His memory lives. No, this is not the last. 

Is this the last ? Oh Matthew, can it be 

That thy dear image we no more shall see ? 

Must we retain in memory, alone 

That one whose virtues must be loved, — when known f 



58 



No, mourning hearts ; look up — and draw a smile : 

To rest in peace is far from Matthew's style. 

He will appear, e'en though it only be 

To demonstrate his eccentricity ; 

For, while the earth his well-known form entombs. 

His ghost will haunt yon recitation rooms. 

How often at the midnight hour he'll stand 

Beside that door ! within his wasted hand 

A piece of chalk, — yes, even now we see, 

In fancy, or in dread reality, 

A ghostly form which, with reproachful eyes. 

Gazes upon us as in mute surprise. 

Two massive tablets do his shoulders bear 

And, in the fiery figures flashing there, 

We see the record of that single " tear " 

We made so long ago in freshman year ! 

Why should that record at this time appear 

For our torment ? Why should those burning eyes 

Reproach us for inducing hopes to rise, 

Hopes which, alas ! we ne'er would realize? 

That single " tear !" In this the sting appears ; 

That one lone " tear" shall cause unnumbered tears. 

Nor need we think his presence to elude ; 
Go where we may, his ghostship will intrude. 
Throughout our lives our follower he will be, 
With even more than woman's constancy. 
Yes, in whatever circle we may move, 
Though fenced by sacred barriers of love. 
E'en in that circle Matthew will appear 
And, in those accents so familiar here. 
Will give us its equation, muttering there, 
jr2+t/2=radius square 1 

Thus, in whatever land our lot be cast, 
His spectre lives. No, this is not the last. 

Is this the last ? Dear Matthew, can it be 
That in reality, we ne'er shall see 
Thy form again ? Oh ! can not this relief 
Be granted us in our distracting grief? 
The knowledge that, in near or distant time, 
Either in this or in some other clime. 
Our much wept Matthew we again shall greet ? 
• Oh ! cruel fates ! say not " ye ne'er shall meet." 

Upon the evening breeze a voice is borne 
That bids us not thus hopelessly to mourn. 
It says " though fated now that ye must part, 
Be not cast down, nor lay it thus to heart ; 



59 

'For, like to his assymptotes shall ye be 
And meet him somewhere in infinity ; 



Ashes to ashes do we now entrust 

And breathe this tribute o'er the honored dust. 

Here rests, his head upon the lap of earth, 
A youth to grateful Juniors now unknown. 
Dalrymple trained the infant from its birth. 
Till Duffield fondly claimed it as his own. 

Plain were his problems and his statements clear, 
But their solution was pronounced a "bore;" 
Now from his problems we have naught to fear, 
His great equation solved— his work is o'er. 

No longer seek his frailties to disclose. 
For they are neither very small nor few; 
But, undisturbed, permit them to repose. 
Where they were laid by sorrowing (?) '72. 

When the grave had been dug, the High Priest, Mr. Bishop Srortt, 
read the following melancholy service amid the tears and bewailings of all 
assembled : 

Mathematics that is born of a triangle hath but a short time to live and is full of 
misery. He cometh up, and is cut down like a flower ; he fleeth as it were a shadow, 
and never eontinueth in our stay. E pluribus Unum, (tears from Tteee). Omnia Gal- 
lia in tres partes divisa est. Nil habet infelix paupertas durior in se quam quad ridieu- 
los homines facit. Arma virumque cano Troja (interrupted here by a groan from Stockton). 

Pone Luctum, William Pearson, 

Ex serenus lachrymas ; 
Non est jam Simonis ccena, 
Non cur lietum exprimas. 
Causae mille sunt litandi 
Causffi mille exultandi 
Alleuia ! resonas. 
Vacuus viator coram latrones cantabit. Sic semper tyrannis. ( Jno. Oliver here fell on 
Frame's shoulders and wiped his eyes on his coat). Quantum suflfieit. Secula seculorum. 
Germania omnis a Gallis Rhaitisque et Pannoniis Rheno et Danubio fluminbus. Mul- 
tum in parvo, (here Joe Boyr fainted). Et nunc vale ! tangentque, hypothenuseque 
parabolaque. Requiesnat in pace. 

"Let the pyre be lighted" said he, and a thin spiral flame shot up like 
a serpent, which, as the moments went on grew into a bright broad crack- 
ling flame, The grave diggers dressed in muddy corduroy, greasy hats 



6o 

and high top boots, leaned upon their pick axes and gazed mute upon the 
hissing fii'e. The flames rolled on, hissed and wrapped in their glittering 
arms the dark sombre coffin which held the sacred remains. They seared 
and burnt and at last i:>ierced through the texture of the wood and the 
next instant crackled and hissed in the cold face of the dead on'e enclosed ; 
every lip was mute and every form immovable, no one uttered a sound, 
no one raised a hand as the fire swept along the slender form and consum- 
ed the emaciated countenance. Soon nothing but ashes remained and 
then the grave digger hollowed out a hole in the ground in which all that 
was left of poor Matthew was placed. 

Then did the demonstrations of joy begin. Oh what a wild scene ! 
What grotesque ceremonies ! What wonderful costumes ! What horri- 
ble ear splitting sounds ! Blasts from tin horns, clangs from anvils, reports 
from pistols, and the rattling thunder from the "boss fiddle" mingled 
with shouts and yells and the din of tin pans and sleigh bells. About the 
mouldering fire leaped and danced the phantastic mourners until the morn- 
ing light began to dawn over in the Eastern sky, when with a wild un- 
earthly tumult that could have been heard five miles the crowd disband- 
ed. Thus did we dispose of Matthew Matics in a manner which did 
credit to the class and which engendered from all who witnessed the 
ceremonies the most flattering commendations. 



ITEMS. 

At the opening of the year many new members entered our class, as 
can be seen by glancing over the rolls at the end of this volume. During 
the first term the cane rush took place, for which Johnston, Kase, Jew- 
ell and others were apprehended by the faculty : but it so happened that 
Johnston was. guiltless and Kase was out of town, consequently the 
faculty dropped the afi*air and the actual cane rushers escaped uninjured : 
the fight was a tough one and the palm of victory belonged as much to 
oiir side as to the other. 

The annual circus came along and the Sophomores hired the clown to 
call the Freshman Koll. (N. B. It is strongly suspected that these two 
Sophs were John Oliver and Freddy Duval. ) The leopard spotted 
clown did his duty, and the Freshman roll was called, to the great chagrin 



6i 

of the Freshmen themselves and to the great satisfaction of the inhuman 
upper classmen. 

Our boys introduced a new feature of imitating the Freshmen, which 
was to cabbage a Freshman's hat under any cii-cum stances. Alas ! On 
three consecutive times did I behold one particular Freshman walking 
home bare headed at night, swearing dismally as he paused here and 
there under a gaslight. 

Harry Boyle and Will Marr were sent away at the end of first 
term. 

An indignation meeting was held in Prof. Gruyot's room owing to the 
report that some member of our class had taken part in hazing a young 
man at present in college, but nothing special was transacted. 

Will Guernsey and some others organized a boat club with which 
the following members of '72 were afterward connected: McClintock, 
Stockton, Jewell, Kase, Devereux, Hazlett, A. Johnson, Tay- 
lor, W. Pearson. 

Other members also became connected with the club. At present our 
navy consists of five boats in all and Princeton will soon be regularly rep- 
resented in the college regattas. 

Dr. Mcllvaine's barn was set on fire by some of our bad com)ianions 
and entirely consumed. No report ever came from the faculty as to who 
struck the match and it is probable (?) that the fire resulted from sj'On- 
taneous combustion. 

Sam Hageman gave a concert in the First Church. 

Twenty-five men picked from the college went to New Brunswick tc 
contend with twenty-five men at Rutgers at a game of foot-ball. Our 
men were beaten by a score of 6 to 4. In a few weeks Rutgers returned 
our visit and were beaten badly. Rutgers did not secure a single game 
of the eight, that were played, and during the ball season our nine defeat- 
ed theirs by a score of five to one. 

During the year Prof. Cameron went abroad, and on the eve of his 
departure the students gave him a serenade, for which the Professor 
returned many thanks in a neat little address. 

There was a public discussion around the cannon at mid-day concern- 
ing the Infallibility of the Pope : the debaters were J. Wilson and Jo- 
seph Boyd. The entire college assembled to hear the debate and both 
contestants did nobly ; but alas ! they were hustled up before the faculty, 



62 

roughly scolded and presented with several disorder marks, as were many 
of those also who had listened to Joseph and Jay. 

Dr. Mcllvaine, who had been our professor in Elocution accepted a 
call from a jchurch in Newark, New Jersey, and the chair of belles lettres 
was left vacant, though not entirely so, for we doubt whether any pro- 
fessor could have understood our wants or furnished us with such enter- 
taining instruction as did Tutor Hunt. 

Prof. Packard, who had been elected to fill the Chair of Latin, entered 
upon his duties during the year, and upon his arrival was warmly wel- 
comed by the students. 

Prof. Karge too met with the warmest reception, and we doubt whether 
there is to be found in the country a professor so able, accomplished and 
enthusiastic, or one that is so patient, practical and popular. 

Captain Bradford went to Trenton to hear Clara Louisa Kellogg 
during the second term and while Clara Louisa sang the air to "Home, 
Sweet Home," Captain Brad accompanied her with his deep stirring 
bass. 

DEATH OP BOYLE AND MARK. 

Never in the history of our lives has an incident occurred which was 
in itself so tragic, that cast such a gloom over Alma Mater, or that was 
the means of sending more misery into the hearts of many families as the 
death of Harry Boyle and Will Marr. 

Long before they entered college, they were our companions and 
friends, and we never in our life met with more thorough gentlemen, 
more talented .students, or more generous companions than these, and 
when enrolled as members of Seventy-Two, in every college campaign they 
labored for the dignity of their class and the best interests of their class- 
mates. 

Owing to some little college affair, which, by the way, has never been 
disclosed, they were sent to Beli-Air, Maryland, under the tutorage of 
McCalway, a graduate, with whom they remained until the opening of 
the Christmas terra of Sophomore Year, when Boyle came North with 



63 

the intention of spending several weeks with Marr at his home in Mil- 
ton, Pa. 

About this time kind and enthusiastic letters were sent to us, in which 
they expressed the expectation of entering their class again at an early 
date. During their stay at college the intimacy which existed between 
these two young men was very great, and Marr gave a party to Boyle, 
but before it was held death came to both. 

Returning from a carriage ride they were obliged to cross a railroad at 
a point where the road made such an abrupt curve that it was almost 
impossible to see an approaching train until it was quite near. Upon the 
day of the sad event there was sent out an extra train, which was not set 
down upon the time-table, and of which they were ignorant. As they 
were crossing the track the train struck their carriage. Both were hurled 
in the air, and in falling Marr's neck was broken, causing instant death. 
and Boyle was thrown against the curbing, and the top of his head 
entirely crushed in. 

All this took place within a few yards of Mark's house, and his 
mother from the parlor window saw her only son murdered. She rushed 
from the house, and her screams were so piercing and heart-rending that 
they almost paralyzed those who were carrying her dead boy homeward, 
and almost caused them to drop the body. 

Boyle lingered for many hours, but seemed entirely unconscious, 
though his moans were terrible to hear. 

Side by side they laid the dead boys out, and never was there a sadder 
funeral. 

The blow almost killed Mrs. Marr, and within that room where they 
were encoffined side by side she permits no one to enter. 



In Junior year we take our ease, 

Fol de rol, de rol, rol, rol, 
We smoke our pipes and sing our glees, 

Fol de rol, de rol, rol, rol. 



JUNIOR YEAR. 



PRELUDE. 



From that hour when first we looked through the gloomy windows 
of the old recitation room and saw the merry Juniors strolHng off to break- 
fast, while we were forced to sit astride the rough pine benches hungry 
and sleepy, there seemed to be a charm about Junior year which increased 
as one class after another went out into the world drawing us nearer to 
it ; and we even now look back to Junior year as the dearest one of all 
the four, and as one in which our highest expectations were more than 
realized. 

Alas ! (or rather) Hurrah ! for the times that have changed ; for the 
Freshman of to-day knows not the sorrows of the Freshman of yesterday. 
There are no ^'before 'breakfast'^ recitations now. Fresh and Juniors 
" chew their bones" side by side in these glorious days ; but there was a 
time when if a Freshman dared poke his head in the room where Juniors 
were eating, every plate, bottle and knife upon the table would be hurled 
at his head. There ivas a time when a Freshman would have suffered 
expulsion rather than enter the dining room until every Junior had 
disappeared. Oh Freshman of to-day, you can never wear our glorious 
scars ; you can never have our noble " crook ;" you can never wear our 
honorable wrinkles. 

Day after day have wc wrestled with G-reek before sunrise, and after 
the last verb was conjugated have we crept sullenly to breakfast, where 
we were forced to content ourselves with the bones which the ravenous 
Juniors left, and drink our coffee from their cups, and many a time did 



66 

we venture to cut recitation and steal secretly in the dining room along 
with the Juniors, and regularly were we rudely grasped by the head and 
heels, hustled out in the street, and kicked around like a football. In 
vain have we plead sickness. 

" Sick, are you !" cried a reckless Junior to us one morning when we 
were nearly famished — ^^ Sick are you, then you need some medicine," 
and despite our cries and prayers and kicks the wicked young man forced 
a cruet of olive oil down our throat. 

We never went to breakfast along with them after that ; but we used to 
sit upon the stoop outside, and think how we would abuse the Freshmen 
when we were Juniors, to neutralize the blows we were daily receiving, 
and just when we were about to carry our designs into execution, the 
board of trustees abolished the recitation before breakfast, and all our pro- 
jects were abandoned. But Freshmen and Sophomores and Juniors and 
Seniors, you have one relic of barbarism left yet, and that is the recitation 
which takes place immediately after chapel, and when the next year opens 
petition the board of trustees to abandon it also ; tell them that there is no 
way in which they could better display their philanthropy, no surer means 
of obtaining your hearty regard than by simply issuing a decree that no 
recitation shall be held until nine o'clock ; the regard of so many is 
certainly worth something, and with the same consideration with which 
they have heeded you before, they will respond to your petition now. 



CHAPTER I. 



Freddy Duval as Mazeppa. 



There was a private concert held one night in Junior year in the lec- 
ture room of the First Presbyterian Church, and it is a noticeable fact 
that whenever amateurs appear in a public entertainment, although 
announcements to the effect are posted upou every store box and tree in 
town, and although the public are generally expected to attend, still the 
entertainment is always announced as select and private. 

I doubt whether this entertainment had identified with it that talent 
which was necessary to make it memorable, and I doubt whether you recall 
it now as I mention it, but I assure you upon my honor that there 
was an entertainment and that upon the evening on which it was held, 
numerous carriages were clustered about the old posts outside, typical 
of numerous souls clustered around the lecture room within. If you 
should summon a Freshman and ask him what thing above all others he 
most dearly loved he would answer : 

" A church entertainment." 

And as he made this reply a smile of such ineffable happiness would 
flicker across his countenance that yori would feel like arranging a church 
entertainment simply for the sake of awakening that smile again. 

Should you question further, as indeed that sweet smile would lead 
you to do, and ask him ichy a church entertainment were so sweet, he 
would answer : 

"Well, you see the farmers always attend 'em, and while they are 
listening to the singing within, we look at the teams without, and if we 
like 'em we jump in and take a ride." 

And then if he were a first-class Freshman, (I mean one of the lively 
boys who had taken four long vacations at home during the first term) 
the recollection of many a midnight ride, and of many an infuriated farm- 



68 

er, would bring with it such a tide of glorious emotions that he would 
" get up and cheer." 

The entertainment to which I refer was a good one ; good because it 
was large, and one in which many of the students took part. Every 
care was taken to have this entertainment a model one : the posters were 
printed in nice black ink, and pasted against the trees with nice white 
paste, applied with a soft brush flourished by an unbleached American ; 
the tickets were printed in black ink also, and all the male performers 
had their white vests starched four times in anticipation of the anticipated 
eve ; it was just the stiffest old entertainment ever held here. To be sure 
the programme of the evening is now forgotten, for Tmie, confound it, 
will take the starch out of everything. At about half-past seven that 
night the farmers' teams began to arrive, and as the evenings were grow- 
ing chilly, each farmer brought his robe with him. 

When the overture was ended, and the ball set nicely rolling within, 
a crowd of bad boys so naughty that I'll not state their names, (John 
Oliver and Frame and Curtis can tell you the names, no doubt,) 
entered the church enclosure and began to manipulate among the car- 
riages. - 

One of the fellows obtained a monkey wrench and began to put farm- 
er A's wagon wheels upon farmer B's axle- trees, and changed the buffalo 
robes around quite promiscuously. 

After the fellows had propounded material problems sufficient to keep 
every old farmer busily engaged until daylight in searching for his personal 
property, and proving that such and such a wheel, and robe and whip 
was indisputably his own, these naughty boys leaped into a fine looking 
"rig" and off they went across country at a rate which would have brought 
tears to the proprietor's eyes and which brought out the most active en- 
ergetic powers of the noble horse. 

It seems that Freddy Duval, Blake, L. E. Smith & Co. had ob- 
tained a team, legitimately, upon the same evening, that they might visit 
a neighboring town in which, in consideration of a stated sum of money, 
their youthful ideas had been permitted to shoot. Previous to their 
return the naughty boys drove to the outskirts of Princeton, and since the 
horse had done good service to them, they upon their part decided to do 
good service to the horse and accordingly they detached him from the 



69 

vehicle and slapping him familiarly upon the rump let him wander, har- 
ness clad, wherever his own fancy might lead him to stray. 

Freddy Duval roomed, in those days upon the ground floor of East 
College and we know not for what reason, the gentle steed wandered to 
East and as there was no door to prevent, walked in the entry. 

When Freddy and his crowd drew up in front of East College, 
Freddy told Patterson, a Senior, to go in his room and light his lamp. 
Presently Freddy himself went in the entry leading to his room and ran 
against the gentle quadruped. 

" Oh go on Patterson, and stop your foolin' " cried Freddy, sup- 
posing the brute to be his companion. 

Freddy received no answer to his command, whereupon he again 
vociferated in those deep tones so peculiarly his own. 

" Say, old fellow, you can't fool me : Oh come now, confound it, I'm 
cold, go on !" 

Still no answer. 

"Say, Patterson," continued Freddy, "what's the use, I know 
you, I know just exactly who you are, come let's go in the room." 

No answer still, whereupon Freddy becomes a little incensed and 
cries : 

" By gracious, Patterson, I'll give you an old rousin' kick if you 
don't go on ; come now this is becoming played out." 

Still no reply and Freddy becomes alarmed and speaks patronizingly, 

" Say, Pat, are you sick? Tell me what I can do for you. Don't 
take any account of what I said, I didn't mean anything." 

Freddy in reaching out his hand came in contact with the tail of the 
animal and knowing that Patterson had no beard, he continued : 

" Oh I beg yo\xT par do7i, sir, I thought you were Mr. Patterson, I 
did really. Don't see how in the world I come to make such a mistake. 
Beg your pardon sir, give us your hand. ' ' 

The horse by this time had made up his mind that he had endured 
about as much as could be reasonably expected and suddenly stretched 
out, and Freddy came pretty nearly stretching out too. 

Whereupon Freddy discovered that the person interrupting the 
passage to his room to be a brute, and was just about to act philanthropic, 
when unfortunately for him, the owner of the horse accompanied with 



70 

tha Mayor and Common Council, the SheriflF and the Constable and our 
immaculate Marshal appeared upon the scene with gleaming lanterns 
and Freddy was accused of stealing the brute. 

Freddy was astounded, and manfully asserted his innocence. A 
tremendous scene followed which aroused the college and the fellows 
kept Freddy from being torn from limb to limb by the hungry protectors 
of the law, who believe to this day that Freddy Duval stole that horse 
and that he meant to hide it under his bed during the day, that he might 
take a constitutional ride every night. 



CHAPTER II. 



Logan, Phrenologist and Pugilist. 

Mr. Logan was a modest man. Unlike Dr. Hamlin he did not enter 
town with a grand chariot and a gigantic brass band, unlike Dr. Hamlin 
he had no oil to sell, no cures to effect, no tumors to remove, and yet 
with all his modesty Logan was a greater man than the doctor. 

Logan could not heal the man after he had received the wound, but 
Logan possessed the subtle power of painting out to each one those paths 
in which he could walk without incurring any disease that would call 
upon the healing properties of the " wizard oil," hence I say again that 
the doctor in all his greatness, was not one-half so great as the hero of 
this chapter. 

All the hidden secrets of mankind, their capabilities, their destinies 
as well as their projects and schemes, the great Logan held in his own 
hand. Grive him a hold of your head, let his nimble fingers wander among 
your ringlets and he would tell you all that you had ever done, all that 
you thought about doing, and everything that it would be lest for you to do. 

Logan was vl- phrenologist and there wasn't a great head in the country 
that he had not thoroughly explored. The Queen of England, the Presi- 
dent of the United States, Horace Greeley and Susan B. Anthony all 
testified to the wonderful research and erudition of the erudite professor. 

Why gentlemen, that man had examined enough bumps to pave all 
New Yoi'k, and indeed the country could not point to a more accomplish- 
ed man than this astonishing phrenologist. 

His first lecture was to be free ; the admission to the second one was 
to be 10 cents ; the admission to the third was to be 20 cents ; to the 
fourth 30 cents, and so he was to continue until the last lecture should 
become so extravagant that no one could afford to attend, when Logan 
would vacate the premises for a wealthier sphere. 



72 

' ' Gentlemen, said he, I never praise myself, but by the time I have 
arrived at my 15th lecture, your minds will be so aroused, your interest 
in phrenology will be so intense, and your veneration for the science so 
great, that you will cry for more, more. 

When I was about to leave the last town in which I lectured, a com- 
mittee of the citizens headed by the Mayor and Common Council met me 
at the railway depot and begged me to remain ; in vain I plead that an 
ignorant country was beyond, which pleadingly cried for my advent ; in 
vain I told them that my stay among them would confine to one neigh- 
borhood, the great science destined to be the guiding star of all mankind, 
in vain I mentioned the loving wife and sweet child miles and miles away 
praying for my return : they were inexorable ; they were insane, they 
would heed no threat, they would give ear to no prayer, but they clung 
to the skirts of my garments, they individually besought me a hair of my 
head ; my handkerchief was torn in shreds, the young ladies cabbaged my 
umbrella, and divided it in apron strings, the mayor grasped my cravat, 
while the common council fell into my bosom and tore the tails from my 
coat. Ah, gentlemen, never was a human being the recipient of such an 
ovation before, never was the love of science so enthusiastically portrayed. 
Hundreds of bumps have passed under these ten fingers, and each bump 
was the seat of some human sentiment, passion or emotion ; in some par- 
ticular bump was the grand problem of human success completely solved ; 
the aims of every man, his passions, his follies and his faults lie under 
the confines of his old slouch hat, and gentlemen I told them all what 
they could do with most pleasing results, What I did for them, that 
will I do for you ; and their tribute to my erudition vrill in turn be given 
by yourselves. 

And what do I request ?* Do I come asking you to accede to an ex- 
travagant demand ? Do I come amid the roll of drums and the clangor of 
horns hke the charletan and the quack to play with the vital functions of 
life with a beastly onguent that will ultimately render existence a curse? 
No sir, but I came as a disciple of science, and as a devotee of that sci- 
ence which holds in its hands the key of life, the secret of success ; come 
to my first lecture free. Eloquence, the sunshine of science, hke light the 
sunshine of Heaven should be free, and I freely give you as much elo- 
quence as Nature has freely given to me. Come, come, rain or shine, 



n 

for my agent will have opera glasses and umbrellas for sale or to hire at 
reasonable terms. ' ' 

We listened as the man in tattered garments spoke : 

" His clothes were rags ; his beard was all unshorn, 
And like a vulture's talon was his hand." 

He stood in the pale moonlight, and the boughs of the trees sweeping 
down, almost touched his matted locks as though Nature were courtesying 
to the unfolder of her laws. He was a tall man, and his arms when rest- 
ing by his side almost touched his knees, and his fingers were constantly 
moving as though there were unseen bumps in the very atmosphere about 
them. His face was haggard and care worn, and his body was like that 
of a man who had suffered a scarcity of things to eat ; his mouth was 
large as though stretched and widened by a constant longing for something 
palatable, and when he smiled the corners of that mouth seemed to rain 
each side ot his head which gave his face an appearance identical with 
that of the crescent of Granada. 

Well the boys went down to hear him upon the following night ; the 
interest was intenKe, although the hall was dimly lighted. Upon the 
rostrum rested a table and upon the table a single skull, and a pair of leg 
bones, while behind the table stood the great Logan himself. 

The Professor was absent minded, evidently, for during the evening, 
the skull which he first assured us formerly belonged to John Bunyan, 
became in turn the skull of William Tell, Captain Semmes and Horace 
Greeley, and the bone which was first the property of Patrick Henry, 
became eventually the property of Mary Queen of Scots. 

Now SMC^ assertions wouldn't go down. We were willing to be im- 
posed upon ; but we didn't care to have Horace Greeley insulted, and so 
the professor was informed that if he didn't "grind" better than that, 
we would proceed to grind, ourselves. Hereupon the professor bright- 
ened up a little, and things went along very well, until picking up that 
same old skull he assured us that about it once hung the face of John 
Smith. 

Our endurance gave out, and a committee previously appointed, per- 
formed an overture upon tin horns. The professor became excited and 
said he could thrash the biggest man in the crowd: the horn overture 
continued, the lights were extinguished, while in the confusion and dark- 
ness which ensued, a reckless Sophomore upset the phrenologist and run 



74 

off with the skull of John Bunyan, Captain Seinmes, Horace Greeley 
and John Smith. The bone of Patrick Henry and Mary Queen of Scots 
now hangs in the room of that same gentleman. No words of mine can 
describe that awful scene, but in the rush the professor escaped and noth- 
ing more was seen of him that night. 

On the next evening he was to deliver his ten cent lecture, and about 
ihree hundred students formed in line and marched to the place where 
the lecture was to be held. Strange to say the hall was dark and the 
doors were barricaded. Where had the professor gone ? 

" Let's go to the depot" some one shouted and away the crowd rushed- 
There they found the professor, and gave him a lively mill. 

He became fearfully excited and insisted upon killing some one, he 
drew his revolver, when a student standing behind caught him and carried 
him out of the depot. From the platform of the car he called us thieves, 
murderers and liars, just as the whistle sounded, and the train moved off. 
We gave him three hearty cheers, as the philanthropic train whirled him 
out of town. 

ITEMS. 

Perhaps it is safe to say that there has not taken place since our Jun- 
ior Orator contest, one in which such a general interest was excited. The 
attention of the entire college was aroused, and heavy bets were made 
concerning its final issue. Both halls were in session until after midnight. 
The following decisions, (the most .'-atisfactory and impartial that could 
have been made) was repoited by the committee : 

Whigs. Olios. 

Atwater, Berry, 

Wilson, Daniels, 

Martin, Murray, 

Lane, Duval. 

Below we append the speeches delivered at the annual exhibition : 

Atwater, Professional, Integrity. 

Berey, Jonathan Edwards. 

Martin, The Education of Shakspeare. 

Daniels, John Bright. 

Lane, Duties of the True Citizen. 

Murray, The World's True Heroes. 

Wilson, Principles : not Men. 

Duval, Integral Character. 



75 

Prizes were awarded to the following gentlemen : 

Daniels and Lane, 1st prize. 

Martin and Berry, 2d prize - 

M ALLOT and Magee went after apples and a scene ensued like that 
in which " o^ir grape pickers'^ figured. 

Dickinson Hall was dedicated Oct. 27, 1871. 

The bell rope was tied, -ind morning chapel was 20 minutes late Oct. 
29. 

During Junior year the Japanese princes arrived, and have since be- 
come very popular. 

The bearded woman, big man and " double caputted gal" gave a show 
and excited considerable wonder. 

The number of students so greatlj' increased that our class was hustled 
away up along side of chapel stage, right under the noses of the venera- 
ble doctors. 

The new organ was tried for the first time by professionals who gave 
a concert in the college chapel. The concert was a success. 

The glass-blowers gave an entertainment which was largely attended. 

Our exhibition in gymnastics was held Feb. 18, 1871 for the benefit 
of the ball club, and a large profit was realized. 

John Vandyke became celebrated as a philanthropist by publishing 
his translation of Cicero's Letters, which was called " The Aid, devoted 
exclusively to the elucidation of Roman Literature. 

The College World, a fortnightly journal, was issued, but though its 
editors did all in their power to promote its excellence, their efforts met 
with so little recognition that the paper was discontinued after 8 numbers. 

Alice Grilmore's female minstrels drew the largest house ever assembled 
in Princeton. 

Two hundred students refused to attend recitation upon Washington's 
birthday. 

College suspended on account of small pox, March 28, '71. 

Fire at Queenston, and upon the same evening Bailey's stable took 
fire. Our class put the fire out. 

At the commencement of '71, during our Junior year, Pres. Grant, 
Sec. Belknap, Robeson, Gen. Blair, and many other distinguished persons 
were present. 



COUNSEL. 



' If thou dost bid thy friend farewell, 

But for one night though that farewell may be, 
Press thou his palm with thine. How canst thou tell 
How far from thee, 

Fate or caprice may lead his feet 

Ere that to-morrow comes ? Men have been known 
To lightly turn the corner of a street, 
And days have grown, 

To months, and months to lagging years. 

Before they looked in loving eyes again. 
Parting at best is underlaid with tears— 
With tears and pain. 

Therefore, lest sudden death should come between. 

Or time or distance, clasp with pressure true 
The hand of him who goeth forth ; unseen. 
Fate goeth too ! 

Yea, find thou always time to say 

Some earnest word between the idle talk ; 
Lest with thee henceforth, ever, night and day. 
Regret should walk." 



SENIOR YEAR. 



PRELUDE. 

From the time we first entered college our life has been one of constant 
discontent ; we have longed to step higher, that we might the sooner 
reach the confines of that busy throbbing world without. 

We have reached it at last, and it has come quickly ; the next advance 
carries us from these scenes, and leaves us miles away from those we love. 
We don't have any of that feeling of pride which we presumed we would 
display when we were grave and reverend Seniors. Ben Reynolds wears 
the same old mustache mentioned in the prelude of Freshman year ; Rip 
Van Winkle Loder slumbers during every lecture just the same as he 
always did, and Andrew McClintock utters the same miserable old 
conundrums. The threshold of the chapel as of old seldom, feels the pres- 
sure of Bishop Shortt's feet; John Woodruff and Joe Woods box 
in the back seats more enthusiastically than ever, for constant practice 
has given them that proficiency which knocks Cotton Wilson "clear 
out of time. ' ' 

Joe Boyd insists upon giving instruction to all the professors as usual, 
and still retains his sympathy for the "miserable house of Stuarts." 
For three years he has been trying to learn " Old Hundred," but hangs 
upon tbe scale, and sprains his ancles over the bars as of yore. BiLLY 
Guernsey runs out and in the lecture room with the same imperturbable 
gravity as that which has reposed upon his countenance ever since he 
learned that he was related to Thomas Jefferson ; Warren Shortt plays 
the same old tune upon the same old flute ; the only change that has 



7^ 

taken place is shown in Captain Brad's love for History of Philosophy, 
and Lewis Dew art's inordinate affection for Homer. 

How strange it seems ! Why we imagined we would be ever so large 
when we once arrived at Senior year, and here, confound it, I havn't 
increased an inch nor gained a pound. We thought the Freshmen would 
bow their heads and touch their hats when we passed along, but on the 
contrary, they call us Bill and Jack and Tom just as if we were Freshmen 
and they were Seniors. The professors hammer and knock us around 
as loosely as they did in the by gone days of fires and horn sprees. They 
do not seem to realize our greatness, but yank us up before their dismal 
tribunal, as we used to yank the shivering Freshmen out of their beds 
when we were gay and festive Sophomores. Alas, we awake from our 
slumbers surprised upon not finding the realization of our dreams. 
Have things changed, or was it our fancy that painted in such glowing 
colors the scenes of Senior year ? 

Here we are, upon the last stage of the college course ; we stand in 
the pathway for which we have been longing four years, and now we 
actually feel sad. We would rather be stately Juniors, for then we would 
have something in anticipation. Alas! we take no enthusiasm in any- 
thing ; we count the days, dust our old valises, and examine the time 
table to ascertain the earliest possible moment we can get out of this. 

We are tired, and the old faculty has actually discharged the boot 
black, and won't let us sell our rooms. Senior year is by no means a 
success ; it's on the contrary a humbug, and we have to "get up and dust' ' 
for our degrees. Alas ! our anticipations have befooled us, and we stand 
trembling before the door leading us out into the world. 

The Historian feels that he has published in this volume, all that will 

interest his class. He has omitted all rolls, ephemeral topics and dry 

detail, which would have simply annoyed him, and greatly impaired the 

appearance of this book. The Class Day Herald will contain all that is 

herein omitted, and your historian begs that you will write to him during 

January, 1873, stating your affairs and your intended employments so that 

the appearance of the second volume of this history may not be delayed. 

We most earnestly heg that this request he fully complied with. In writing 

please address 

Karl Kase, 

Newark, New Jersey. 



ITEMS 



The news of Gib Badeau's marriage and of his unbounded happiness 
was confirmed. We congratulate him and expect, if that girl don't go 
back on us to do the same. 

Japanese embassadors came to see the two princes Kow and Yamaoka. 
Kow and Yamaoka were glad, very glad. 

G-rand election for Class Day officers; intense interest was excited; 
electioneering was constant. Great enthusiasm abounded when the fol- 
lowing result was announced, after a meeting three hours long. 

Joe Woods, Master of Ceremonies. 

John Davis, Class Orator. 

D. Decker, Poet. 

Warren Shortt, Library Orator. 

Lou Dewart, Ivy Orator. 

Jay Wilson, Presentation Orator. 

Karl Kase, (elected in Fresh Year,) Historian. 

committee. 
S. E. Ewing, Chairman. 
Belville, Taylor, 

Dayton, ' Billy Pearson, 

B. Chambers, Bradford. 

editors of herald. 

J. Walker, Frame, 

H. Vandyke, W. Johnson. 

Howell was elected Class Photographer after a sharp debate. 

A mock trial was held in which Walker was accused of stealing a 
horse. The man who made the charge was Bishop Shortt, who declar- 
ed that the horse had a white head and a blue tail, whereupon the judge 



8o 

said that no such horse ever existed ; upon further investigation, Mr. 
Shortt said the nag had only three legs, and the judge replied that a 
horse to be a horse must have four legs, and a horse with three legs was a 
lie, 'cause he was no horse at all, and that since Mr. Walker had not 
stolen a whole horse, and since the indictment said that he had, the 
indictment was as miserable as the horse, and in no wise affected the lib- 
erty of the gentleman accused. 

Pryor's death caused gi'eat grief, and cast a gloom over the entire col- 
lege. He was buried here and his funeral was largely attended. There 
is a mystery connected with his death that has never been cleared up. 

KasEy's alligator arrived during the first term, and Kasey would 
like to know where that alligator has gone now. 

Our chapel stage speeches were spoken of as superior to those given 
by former classes. 

Thanksgiving day was quiet, most of the fellows insisting upon giving 
thanks in some other town than in Princeton. 

We held a bogus election in which Martin was the Republican can- 
didate, and Kase the Democratic. Martin was elected, and speeches 
were made in the evening around a blazing bon fire, the '^nigger'''' band 
furnishing music. 

Dr. Atwater was serenaded in his new mansion and made in response 
a graceful speech. 

Bishop Shortt announced himself leader of the nigger band, that 
played for the division in which he was enrolled. 

Black Swan sung in Witherspoon street. 

French can-can troupe gave an entertainment in Cook's hall. Some 
one had previously put a partition in the chimney, and smoking was con- 
sequently allowed. 

Warren Shortt advertised for a man who could read his Whig Hall 
diploma ; the man has never been found. 

All the class handed in the question concerning the Alabama Claims 
as a subject for Senior graduating speeches ; the subject by lottery fell to 
Clarence Lane. 

Washington's birth day was celebrated with appropriate ceremonies, 
Daniels spoke and T. Johnston read the Declaration of Independence ; 
other classes also took part. 



Gumpton Cute gave a lecture ; no one attended. 
Great excitement in Prof. Hart's recitation ; Boyd, DeVereux and 
Lalor were unfortunate in the finale. 

At the end of 2d term the following gentlemen graduated : 
Walker, Berry, Graham, 

Baker, Birnib, ■ McCaslin. 

Hart, Magee, 

The Historian finds that his heroes have become so moral that no 
sprees have occurred this year. 



VALEDICTORY. 



The last chapter of the history is ended, and your historian's work is 
done, but ere he closes his diary, and casts aside his pen, he would speak 
a few words, for,^ithin his heart steals the conviction that his classmates 
are assembled before him for the last time, and that never, never again 
will they all be within the hearing of his voice. 

We who have lived so long together, must spend the remainder of our 
lives apart ; and those with whom we will be hereafter associated, are 
strangers. They're funny fellows, strangers are, they always act contrary 
to your anticipations, and in direct opposition to the manner in which you, 
under similar circumstances are sure you would act yourselves. They 
always appear to be the opposite of what they really are, and the best 
thing for us to do when we meet a stranger is to take it for granted that 
he is standing upon his head, because if we do not, we, in a remarkably 
short space of time, will be standing that way ourselves. 

Our history as a class is finished, our histories as individuals now 
begin, and as we stand thus midway between the old life which has been 
so dear, and the new life of which we know so little, the emotions which 
fill our hearts are unutterable, and not within our power to pronounce. 

We are about to part ; we have made our last " stump,'' we have had 
our full allowance of ^^ last probations" and ^^ disorder marks," we will 
" cut" no more, for between us and those unknown regions in which we 
will hereafter figure, lies but a single day, and as little children turned 
from the nursery, so Alma Mater turns us out into the world. 

The songs of the past break melodiously upon our ears ; bright mem- 
ories of days gone by live fresh within our hearts ; we can recall all our 
absent companions, and remember every scene in which they figured, and 
just now when our happiness is most complete, the hand upon the dial is 
silently nearing the parting hour. A feeling of inexpressible sadness 



S3 

creeps over us ; strange passions, sentiments and emotions struggle for 
utterance, yet, we feel, that the dark mysterious future has within it, 
an hour whose sadness will be more unutterable still. 

For behold, for the first time we stand alone ; Alma Mater leaves us 
to finish the work which with her we began, and what our friends have 
so long been doing for us, we must now do for ourselves ; we are upon 
the boundaries of a new world, the curtain has not yet been raised, but 
strange sounds break upon our ears ; strange voices speak in accents 
which we cannot understand ; we are confused, perplexed, dazzled, there 
are passions in our hearts which we never felt before ; we are eager to 
see the curtain lifted ; we long to enter upon that busy world which holds 
our destinies, and in which rests our fortunes ; we are proud to begin a 
race when so many are looking upon us as we cross the score, and we long 
to test pur power, as infants are pleased to test their strength ; though we 
feel sad when leaving our companions, we, in our boyish enthusiasm, look 
upon the future as dearer, brighter than even the past. 

But there will come a time when we will cease to look forward, and 
begin to look back : it will be when success has crowned our efibrts, or 
when disappointments have so overwhelmed our hearts that they can 
struggle no more. 

How will it be then ? don't think I am going to answer the question 1 
how could I answer it ? but I believe that our thoughts will wander here, 
and that we will recall this very scene, this very hour when, for the last 
time, we were all together. 

I do not wish upon this joyful occasion to intrude any gloomy thoughts 
of my own, but when we are scattered to other lands, and when letters 
come to your historian of your aims, and your successes, the contrast 
between these letters, 1 fear, will be very great. 

I have said all I care to ; it would have been better perhaps had I 
not spoken at all ; but when hands are clasped and farewells spoken, when 
we go out as little children in the dark, let us remember, the brightest star 
is farthest away, and that to reach it we must pass through many hard- 
ships, and turn our backs upon many a false light. 

Let us not expect too much, let us not hope to gain success in a single 
day ; let us not think Heaven unkind because all we seek comes not the 
same hour in which it is asked. Little by little our lives run out ; and 



84 

it is not by leaps but with slow unwavering steps that men obtain honor 
and fame. 

It is well to be serious sometimes, and as we leave behind us these 
happy scenes, as we part from our dear friends, and as we enter upon 
those paths leading we scarcely know where, let us lift our hands upward 
and give utterance to Proctor's beautiful prayer, perhaps the most earnest 
and christian-like plea in our langu age : 

I do not ask, Oh Lord, that life should be 

A pleasant road : 
I do not ask that Thou wouldst take from me 

Aught of its load. 

I do not ask that flowers should always spring 

Beneath my feet : 
I know too well the poison and the sting 

Of things too sweet. 

I do not ask my Cross to understand, 

My way to see : 
Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand, 

And follow Thee. 

For one thing, only, Lord, dear Lord, I plead, 

Lead me aright, 
Though strength should falter, and though heart should bleed. 

Through Peace, to Light. 

Classmates ! all that you have given me to do has been finished, 'and 
there is nothing more for me to say except Farewell^ may you all live and 
flourish long after this history is forgotten, and the lips of your historian 
are mute. 



